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Donald Macintosh

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Donald  Macintosh
Donald Macintosh (1743 - 1808) was a Scottish clergyman, a nonjuror of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and a scholar of Scottish Gaelic.

After attending the parish school, and acting for some time as a teacher, he moved to Edinburgh. In 1774 he was one of Peter Williamson's penny postmen; he next found employment as a copying clerk, and was subsequently tutor in the family of Stewart of Gairntully. For some years from 1785 he was employed in the office of Mr. Davidson, deputy-keeper of the signet and crown agent.

On 30 November 1786 Macintosh was elected to the honorary office of clerk for the Gaelic language to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and held it until 1789. In 1789 James Brown, the sole representative of the nonjuring episcopal clergy of Scotland, made Macintosh as his successor, ordaining him deacon in June 1789, and later priest. He made an annual tour through the Perthshire highlands as far north as Banff, Aberdeenshire, ministering to the small remnant who accepted his pastoral authority.

In 1801 he was chosen Gaelic translator and keeper of Gaelic records to the Highland Society of Scotland, with a salary. He died in Edinburgh on 22 November 1808, the last representative of the nonjuring Scotch episcopal church, and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard.

Macintosh was compiler of A Collection of Gaelic Proverbs and Familiar Phrases (1785), the first collection of Celtic proverbs. Macintosh's library of books and manuscripts, numbering about 2,000 volumes, he bequeathed to the town of Dunkeld.

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