Melancholy ghosts of poly past

Abstract

Who was Buckland? And King? And what about "the poor old Dise"? Historian and avid Punch reader Dr Ged Martin, director of Edinburgh University's Centre of Canadian Studies, confesses himself baffled by these references in a century-old poem, "The Poly", which apparently commemorates the demise of the Royal Polytechnic Institute in London's Regent Street, now the site of the Polytechnic of Central London. Do you want to know the merriest place