James Macintosh (1846-1937)
Image: The Chapter House Museum Trust

Flute player and musical researcher Munro Gauld outlines his involvement in a community music project in the heart of Scotland.

Back in the spring of 2022 when rummaging around in the Dunkeld Community Archive, I came across a folder containing old handwritten music manuscripts, some printed song sheets and a wee booklet of tunes.  …… all written over 90 years ago by Dunkeld postie and fiddler, James Macintosh (1846-1837). It was the first glimpse into the lives of an extraordinary local family, leading me down a wonderfully rich rabbit-hole of music, stories and artifacts. And the creation of a collaborative community project which will culminate this September at the Birnam Arts Centre with a celebration of the MacIntosh family’s work and music through a new one-act play, concerts of their music, a book of their songs and tunes, and an exhibition.

Dunkeld, its Musical Heritage and the MacIntosh Fiddlers of Inver

Although Dunkeld is little more than a village, it has an incredibly rich musical heritage dating back to the mid-1700s when it was at the heart of Scotland’s “golden age” of fiddling. Inver, just over the river Tay, was the home of the famous fiddler, Niel Gow (1727-1807) and his musical sons William, Andrew, Nathaniel and John. But during the same period the area was also home to other notable musicians such as Malcolm MacDonald, “Red Rob” MacIntosh from Tulliemet and John Crerar, the Duke of Atholl’s head forester.

Into this picture comes the MacIntosh family of Inver. Their story begins in 1783 with the 22-year-old Charles MacIntosh arriving in Inver dressed as a woman! The Duke of Atholl was clearing Glen Tilt of its tenants to enable him to create a deer forest for shooting, and had reputedly allowed the East India Company army to press-gang the glen for its young men. Charles therefore fled in disguise making his way down river until he reached Inver where he leased a cottage next to Niel Gow’s house. Charles married a local girl and together they had eight children – four of whom became fiddlers including May, who is perhaps the first documented woman to play the fiddle. The eldest, James, was Niel Gow’s last pupil and showed such promise that Niel got his son Nathaniel to buy him a good quality fiddle in Edinburgh. After a short spell as a joiner, James moved to Edinburgh to join Nathaniel’s band and to become a professional fiddler, playing throughout Britain as part of “The Reel Players”. He played for King George IV when he visited Edinburgh in 1824 and was reported as having been a neat powerful player with several of his compositions being published by Joseph Lowe.

Lowe’s Collection of Reels, Strathspeys and Jigs, Book 4 (1844–1845)

Another of Charles’s sons, confusingly also called Charles, stayed in Inver and firstly followed his father’s weaving profession before teaching and playing fiddle. In 1843 the publisher Robert Chambers (of Chambers dictionary fame) spent a week fishing and shooting in the area and wrote of how Charles provided entertainment with his fiddle:

‘‘Apropos of the high spirits of the party we had a regale of that lively music for which Athole is celebrated. My host had engaged the attendance of a clever violinist, Charles MacIntosh of Inver, and of Peter Murray, a worthy old violincellist from the same place, that reels and strathspeys might not be wanting to cheer himself and his people after the fatigues of the day. Favoured by these two performers, we had a rustic dance with these two performers upon the raft-like boat ….. where a party of villagers the locals gladly exhibited their skill in that ultra-merry salutation peculiar to grave Scotland. Such electric movements of hob-nailed feet, such frantic gesticulations and intertwistings, such wildly joyous exclamations!”

Charles MacIntosh (1797-1867)
Image: Perth Art Gallery and Museum

Charles composed some lovely tunes – including the slow strathspey, Dr Robertson’s and the wonderfully driving The Auld Boat o’ Logierait – a strathspey named after the very same ferry boat described by Robert Chambers.

Charles married and had 4 children – two of whom, Charlie and Jimmie, remained in Inver, becoming post-runners and part-time musicians. Although they had limited schooling, they both were highly intelligent with enquiring minds, being interested in natural sciences, astronomy, geology and Indian religions. Charlie lost the fingers of his left hand in a sawmill accident which ended his fiddle playing – but he taught himself to play the cello using only the stumps and he joined his father’s dance, playing throughout Perthshire. James had a similar love of traditional music and was to spend 70 years in his father’s, and then his own dance band. In 1930, aged 84, he published a small booklet of 15 of his own tunes. They are cracking tunes, are imbedded into the repertoires of local musicians, and have been recorded by the likes of Silly Wizard, Dougie MacLean and Phil Cunningham.

James Macintosh’s collection of his own compositions, published in 1930.
Image: The Chapter House Museum Trust

MacIntosh Manuscripts

I was therefore very excited to come across manuscripts in Dunkeld Community Archive with an additional twenty of James’s unpublished tunes. After some more digging in the Archive, in Perth Library and at Blair Castle, I found other manuscripts with 20 more tunes composed by James’s father and his uncle – half of which had never been published before. It seemed to me that these tunes were an important part of our local musical heritage and deserved to be played and heard!

I therefore started the process of transcribing the tunes – not always easy given the ink splodges, pencil marks and crossings out … they were definitely works in progress!

James Macintosh manuscript
Image: The Chapter House Museum Trust

I also began to research the family and their lives, considerably helped by two excellent books which provided a lot of detail that otherwise would have been lost: a 1920s biography of James’s brother Charles, the celebrated, amateur “Perthshire Naturalist” and friend of Beatrix Potter, and: Niel Gow’s Inver by local historian Helen Jackson. Along with snippets of information garnered from photographs, documents and letters in the Archive, a picture began to form of a family that was tightly woven into the social, religious and musical life of the community. Three generations of the family were precentors at Little Dunkeld Church, James was secretary of the Dunkeld Highland Games for 40 years, both James and Charles were converts to the Temperance movement and looked to encourage others to abstain through setting up a Templar Society, a flute band and a nature rambling club.

Although the family contributed so much to the area over a 200-year period, unfortunately they have been largely forgotten locally, with only a few people aware of the contribution that they made, the music that they wrote and played, or the fascinating stories of their lives. This project aims to change this through a community-wide celebration of the MacIntosh family, their lives and their work. It involves numerous local organisations and individuals, coming together in a diverse range of activities and events based at Birnam Arts Centre in September.

MacIntosh Play – “A Place fu o Fiddlers” – 28^th and 29^th September

The weekend of MacIntosh celebrations starts with the performance of a newly written one-act play by award-winning Perthshire playwright Lesley Wilson. This exciting and innovative play tells the Macintosh family story combining acting, live music and projected images, and spans the period from the 1780s right up to 1988 when Elizabeth, the last of the Inver MacIntosh family, passed away. With local semi-professional actors Bob Davidson and Anna Hepburn playing multiple parts, it promises to be poignant, humorous and foot-stompingly good fun. James’s fiddle will play its part, as will a First World War brass artillery shell case brought home by James Macintosh’s son Cameron whilst serving in the Machine Gun Corp at Ypres.

MacIntosh Concerts – 28^th and 29^th September

Immediately following the play (after a short intermission) there will be a concert where the tunes and songs composed and collected the MacIntosh family will be played. With their family being such an integral part of the community, and the Dunkeld area having so many talented musicians, it is important that the concert reflects this through the involvement local people and organisations, and tapping into local professional and amateur musicians.  First amongst these is the Dunkeld & District Strathspey and Reel Society, which was established in 1932 by James Macintosh and local school teacher Davina Begg. Ninety years later it is still going strong, ably led by local fiddle maestro Pete Clark. The Society carries Dunkeld’s fiddling tradition, and due to the MacIntosh family, has a direct and unbroken connection from today’s players right back to Niel Gow.

James Macintosh and Davina Begg, founders of Dunkeld & District Strathspey and Reel Society
Image: The Chapter House Museum Trust

The next obvious participant for the concerts is Dunkeld’s Just Singin’ Community Choir.  Charles and James Macintosh, as well as being instrumentalists, were both also hugely interested in folk song and singing. Throughout their lives they collected traditional airs and ballads, but they also composed new ones. After they retired from their jobs as post-runners, they would spend weeks at a time in the surrounding villages teaching singing to local communities, culminating in them holding mini concerts. Fortunately, some of the songs collected and composed by the Macintoshes were written down and thus at the concert they will be sung – some I suspect for the first time in more than 100 years.

Finally, the area is blessed with a brilliant youth music organisation – The Dunkeld and Birnam Traditional Youth Music Group. This wonderfully popular and successful initiative set up by Karys Watt and Gill Hunter gives free traditional music tuition to local children at their weekly classes. Established in 2022, they now number around keen 30 students – and they are already seasoned performers, appearing in local concerts and shows. As the next generation of traditional musicians, they are the perfect embodiment of the legacy of the MacIntosh family and the area’s strong and continuing musical heritage.

There will also be solo performances by Pete Clark and local fiddler Martin MacLeod, as well as addition music provided by other local amateur musicians. It will be a feast of traditional music – all of which will have been written or collected by the MacIntosh family.

An important additional part of the concerts is James Macintosh’s own fiddle which will be played throughout by each of the performers in turn. Sitting in its fiddle case unopened and un-played since James’s death in 1937 and looked after by a local family, the fiddle has now been serviced and repaired by Norrie Holton of Bankfoot. It will take its rightful place centre-stage, re-uniting it with the tunes that were composed and once played on it.

James Macintosh’s fiddle being repaired in Norrie Holton’s workshop
Image: Norrie Holton

MacIntosh Exhibition – 13^th September to 14^th October

The MacIntosh celebrations will also include a month-long exhibition exploring the lives and work of the MacIntosh family. Held at Birnam Arts in their first-floor exhibition area and curated by The Chapter House Museum Trust (the parent body to the Dunkeld Community Archive), the exhibition will contain material sourced from the Archive, other organisations and local private individuals. It will be made up of artifacts, documents, photographs and manuscripts connected with the MacIntosh family, and will include:

• Music manuscripts written by James Macintosh
• James Macintosh’s fiddle
• A length of tartan ribbon given on his death bed to James’s mother in 1854 by Count Roehenstart, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s last remaining descendant.
• First edition music collections once owned by the MacIntosh family, including Niel Gow’s 1784 Collection of Strathspeys and Reels
• Photographs taken by James Macintosh. James built his own camera and took photographs of the area, local characters and notable events. We are fortunate that prints from the glass plate negatives of 50 of these photographs have survived, giving a fascinating insight into life in Dunkeld around 1900. Copies of these prints will be available to purchase from Birnam Arts.

Washerwoman at the Tay next to Dunkeld Bridge, taken by James Macintosh (1846-1937)
Image: The Chapter House Museum Trust

The MacIntosh Fiddlers of Inver Music Collection

This culmination of the research into the MacIntosh family is a compilation of the tunes and songs written and collected by the MacIntosh family. The book will be published in late 2024 and will also contain brief biographies of the family members as well as background information on the individual tunes. As an interesting aside, each generation of the MacIntosh family spelled their surname differently, with even siblings using different variations!

The MacIntosh Fiddlers of Inver promises to be an interesting, informative and hugely enjoyable exploration of a local family, their music and their lives. It will provide both a glimpse into C18th and C19th Dunkeld when it was at the epicentre of Scottish fiddling, as well as the story of how that tradition developed, and indeed, has continued to flourish in the local community to the present day. We would love if you were able to come and join in our celebration!

For further information and tickets for The MacIntosh Fiddlers of Inver concerts and play, see the Birnam Arts website:

https://birnamarts.com/festival-The-MacIntosh-Fiddlers-of-Inver-id449