{"id":77,"date":"2012-09-09T19:31:32","date_gmt":"2012-09-09T18:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/?p=77"},"modified":"2015-03-31T14:12:32","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T13:12:32","slug":"follow-the-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/?p=77","title":{"rendered":"Follow the money"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Macintosh's<\/a>

Macintosh’s house book for 1782.<\/p><\/div>\n

Macintosh was, it is fair to say, seriously committed to record keeping, particularly so in respect of financial transactions. In one letter he expounds at length to his then eleven-year-old son on the benefits of double-entry book keeping. Approximately half of the archival items I examined in Avignon last week related to Macintosh’s financial affairs\u2014both commercial and domestic. These will take serious digestion at some point in the future, but one snippet gives an interesting indication of his (and his family’s) spending habits.<\/p>\n

When Macintosh returned from India in the early 1780s, he spent approximately one year in London, working on his book and (presumably) pursing other business interests. His purchases during this time give an insight into his reading habits (or lack thereof); his health; and his domestic arrangement:<\/p>\n

29 April 1782: \u201c[Hannah] Glasse\u2019s Cookery\u201d; \u201c[John] Entick\u2019s\u00a0Dict[ionar]y\u201d, etc., etc. (\u00a313 6s).
\n6 May 1782: \u201ctwo weeks lodging\u201d (3 Guineas).
\nJune 1782: \u201cA Second hand Forte Piano\u201d; \u201cA Packing Case for D[itt]o\u201d\u00a0(\u00a39 17s 6d).
\n14 June 1782: \u201cAn universal sun Dial w[i]t[h] a compass enam[el]l[e]d\u00a0& a mahogany case\u201d (\u00a310 10s 0d).
\n25 June 1782: \u201c6 waistcoats on an India Camel hair\u201d (\u00a31 1s 0d).
\n10 July 1782: \u201ctwo Glass Stopper Bottles\u201d; \u201cCompound Spirit of\u00a0Lavender\u201d; \u201cTartar Emetic & Phial\u201d; \u201ca Box of Aperient Stomach Pills\u201d\u00a0(\u00a30 9s 8d).
\n14 September 1782: \u201ca second hand phaeton [carriage] & one harness pole\u201d (\u00a330).
\n15 September 1782: \u201ca Chestnut Gelding [horse] I warrant perfectly\u00a0sound\u201d (\u00a316 6s 0d).
\n29 September 1782: \u201cMould\u201d and \u201cCandles\u201d.
\n8 October 1782: \u201cfour weeks lodging\u201d (6 Guineas).
\n21 December 1782: \u201crepairing Cleaning and Polishing the outside of a\u00a0travelling Box\u201d (\u00a39 6s 0d).<\/p>\n

Macintosh’s detailed records (he kept all his receipts) are likely to be useful when it comes to reconstructing his movements, activities, and interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Macintosh was, it is fair to say, seriously committed to record keeping, particularly so in respect of financial transactions. In one letter he expounds at length to his then eleven-year-old son on the benefits of double-entry book keeping. Approximately half of the archival items I examined in Avignon last week related to Macintosh’s financial affairs\u2014both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"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=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":267,"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions\/267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inneskeighren.com\/williammacintosh\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}