Charles Macintosh (composer and naturalist)

Charles Macintosh (1839–1922), known as ’the Perthshire Naturalist’, was a musician and self-taught amateur naturalist from Inver, near Dunkeld, Perthshire, Scotland. He, with his younger brother James, who was a fiddler and himself a composer, represented the third generation of an important musical family in the area. Their grandfather, James (1791–1876), had learned fiddle from Niel Gow, who also lived in Inver. Macintosh spent nearly all his life in the small cottage in Inver where he was born, only moving in with his brother in Dunkeld for the last few months of his life. He worked as a postman, after losing the fingers of his left hand in an accident at a sawmill when young. This disability stopped him playing the fiddle, but he was able to play the cello, stopping the strings with the edge of his hand. He was also precentor in the local Free Church, as his father, Charles Sr, had been before him. He was also superintendent of the Sunday School. He composed several dance tunes, including the strathspey “The Auld Boat of Logierait,” and a reel, “Miss Murray Threipland of Fingask”. He had a collection of old tune books, including the William Dixon manuscript, which he gave to D