{"id":2,"date":"2012-04-04T16:37:21","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T16:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2026-01-30T08:39:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T08:39:18","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"

William Macintosh was an eighteenth-century Scottish merchant, Caribbean plantation owner, pamphleteer, world traveller, \u00e9migr\u00e9, counter-revolutionary spy, and controversial author of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa<\/em><\/a> (1782). He was a product of empire, but also sought to shape and influence Britain’s imperial project through persuasion and publication. This blog is a record of my efforts to recover Macintosh from the shadows and to cast new light onto his life and work in the production of a monograph for McGill-Queen’s University Press, provisionally entitled C<\/em>itizen of the world: the forgotten global lives of William Macintosh, 1737\u20131813<\/em>.<\/i><\/p>\n

The list of those who met, read, or corresponded with Macintosh\u2014Jacques Pierre Brissot<\/a>,\u00a0Edmund Burke<\/a>,\u00a0Aaron Burr<\/a>,\u00a0Olaudah Equiano<\/a>,\u00a0Charles Fox<\/a>,\u00a0Philip Francis<\/a>, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe<\/a>, Catherine Grand<\/a>,\u00a0Warren Hastings<\/a>,\u00a0Johann Gottfried Herder<\/a>,\u00a0Thomas Jefferson<\/a>, Jacques Necker<\/a>, Honor\u00e9 Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau<\/a>,\u00a0Adam Smith<\/a>,\u00a0William Pitt the Younger<\/a>, and\u00a0George Washington<\/a>, among many others\u2014signals his significance to the intellectual and political life of the last quarter of the eighteenth century.<\/p>\n

I am Professor of Historical Geography<\/a> in the Department of Geography<\/a> at Royal Holloway, University of London<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Financial support<\/strong><\/p>\n

In supporting this project, I would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for the award of a Research Fellowship that ran from September 2020 to December 2021, and the British Academy for the award of the Donald Winch Fund Fellowship running from September 2025 to August 2026.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Project team<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am fortunate to have had the assistance of four undergraduate students, and one postgraduate student, from the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London in the transcription of archival material:<\/p>\n

Rhys Gazeres de Baradieux, <\/strong>Department of Geography Placement Research Assistant, June 2017.<\/p>\n

Jaz Bigden<\/strong>, MSc Global Futures: Culture and Creativity Work-Based Learning Research Assistant, February\u2013June 2021.<\/p>\n

Ophelia King<\/strong>, Department of Geography Placement Research Assistant, June 2016.<\/p>\n

Lauren Muir<\/strong>, Department of Geography Placement Research Assistant, June 2016.<\/p>\n

Samuel Thatcher<\/strong>, Department of Geography Placement Research Assistant, June 2017.<\/p>\n

Since April 2020, my father, Alex Keighren<\/strong>, has kindly lent his assistance in the transcription of Macintosh’s correspondence.<\/p>\n

Throughout the project, I have benefited from assistance of various individuals in translating non-English-language sources: Professor Hugh Clout<\/strong>, Dr Elizabeth Haines<\/strong>,\u00a0Dr Emily Hayes<\/strong>, Mr Dominique Lussier<\/strong>, and Dr C\u00e9line Tschirhart<\/strong> have helped with French material; Dr Dean Bond<\/strong> and Dr Luise Fischer<\/strong> with German material; Mr Thomas Gerhardsen Moine<\/strong> with Danish material; and Mr Hidde<\/span> Wams<\/strong> with Dutch and Flemish material.<\/p>\n

Publications emerging from the project<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keighren, Innes M. \u201cThe confiscated library of William Macintosh in the Biblioth\u00e8que municipale d\u2019Avignon\u201d.\u00a0The Library: The Transactions of The Bibliographical Society<\/i> 22, no. 2 (2021): 197\u2013216. [PDF<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Keighren, Innes M. \u201cA contested vision of empire: anonymity, authority, and mobility in the reception of William Macintosh\u2019s\u00a0Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa<\/i>\u00a0(1782)\u201d. In\u00a0Empire and mobility in the long nineteenth century<\/i>, edited by David Lambert and Peter Merriman, 50\u201368. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020.<\/p>\n

Keighren, Innes M. \u201cFrom the archive: on the trail of William Macintosh\u201d.\u00a0Historical Geography Research Group Newsletter<\/i>, winter (2017\u201318): 4\u20135.\u00a0[PDF<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Keighren, Innes M. \u201cCirculating seditious knowledge: the \u2018daring absurdities, studied misrepresentations, and abominable falsehoods\u2019 of William Macintosh\u201d. In\u00a0Mobilities of knowledge<\/i>, edited by Heike J\u00f6ns, Peter Meusburger, and Michael Heffernan, 67\u201383. Cham: Springer, 2017.\u00a0[PDF<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n

Presentations relating to the project<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPrisoner, \u00e9migr\u00e9, spy: revolution and counterrevolution in the life of William Macintosh.\u201d Paper presented at \u2018Displacement and the French Revolution\u2019, a one-day workshop at UCL, London, 29 May 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe archive in the armoire: rediscovering the global lives of William Macintosh.\u201d Inaugural lecture as Professor of Historical Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, 20 May 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTestimonial injustice and the authority of Black voices in eighteenth-century Grenada.\u201d Paper presented at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), London, 27\u201330 August 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTextual mobility and cultural hybridity: following the translations of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa<\/em> (1782).\u201d Paper presented online at \u2018Moving Forward: A Concept-Based Conversation on Mobility and the Humanities\u2019, a two-day workshop hosted by the Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Geografiche e dell\u2019Antichit\u00e0, Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Padova, Italy, 13\u201314 May 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe forgotten lives of William Macintosh in the Age of Revolution: from Caribbean planter to traveller in India; from spy in France to exile in Germany.\u201d Address to the Queen Mary Eighteenth-Century Studies Seminar series, Queen Mary Centre for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 23 October 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIdeas in motion: bodies, books, and the circulation of knowledge.\u201d Paper presented at \u2018G\u00e9ographies en Mouvements\u2019, a two-day workshop organised by the Programme Doctoral de G\u00e9ographie of the Conf\u00e9rence Universitaire de Suisse Occidentale, Montezillon, Switzerland 6\u20137 February 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFragments, mother lodes, and the gaps that remain: recuperating the forgotten geographies of William Macintosh.\u201d Address to the Cultural and Historical Geography Research Group seminar series, School of Geography, University of Nottingham, 7 December 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFragments, mother lodes, and the gaps that remain: recuperating the forgotten geographies of William Macintosh.\u201d Address to the Human Geography Research Group seminar series, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, 30 March 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWilliam Macintosh\u2019s Travels<\/em>: colonial mobility and the circulation of knowledge.\u201d Paper presented at the 16th International Conference of Historical Geographers, London, 5\u201310 July 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Consistent neither with candour nor truth\u2019: negotiating authorship and authority in William Macintosh\u2019s Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa<\/em> (1782).\u201d Paper presented at the 111th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Chicago, 21\u201325 April 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCirculating seditious knowledge: the \u2018daring absurdities, studied misrepresentations, and abominable falsehoods\u2019 of William Macintosh.\u201d Address to the Human Geography seminar series, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, 24 January 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018[D]aring absurdities, studied misrepresentations, and abominable falsehoods\u2019: the geographical writings of William Macintosh (1738\u2013c<\/em>. 1809).\u201d Paper presented at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference, Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), London, 31 August\u20132 September 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

William Macintosh was an eighteenth-century Scottish merchant, Caribbean plantation owner, pamphleteer, world traveller, \u00e9migr\u00e9, counter-revolutionary spy, and controversial author of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa (1782). He was a product of empire, but also sought to shape and influence Britain’s imperial project through persuasion and publication. This blog is a record of my efforts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1595,"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/1595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}