William Carmichael M'Intosh was a Scottish physician and marine zoologist. He served as president of the Ray Society, and as vice-president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Background
M'Intosh was born on October 10, 1838, in St. Andrews, Scotland, the only son of Baillie John M‘Intosh, a builder and magistrate in St. Andrews. He credited his mother, Eliza Mitchell, with an early stimulus toward marine descriptive zoology. His youngest sister, Roberta, who married Albert C. L. Günther, illustrated many of his works.
Education
M'Intosh was educated at St Andrew's University from 1853 to 1857 and the University of Edinburgh, where he received his Doctor of Medicine in 1860.
Career
M'Intosh specialized in mental diseases and was superintendent of the Perthshire Asylum at Murthly from 1863 to 1882, During this time, the results of his marine zoological studies appeared regularly in the scientific literature.
Volume I of his Monograph of the British Marine Annelids brought him wide recognition; hence the Annelid collections from the Porcupine and Challenger expeditions were assigned to him for description. The Monograph was not continued until 1900, when volume II, Polychaetes, appeared; this work was concluded with volume IV in 1923.
M‘Intosh assumed the chair of natural history at St. Andrews in 1882; he retired from it in his eightieth year. In 1883 he was appointed to conduct a royal commission scientific inquiry into the effects of beam-trawling on the Scottish sea fisheries. Knowledge of the early life histories of a variety of marine species was needed, and requisite facilities became available when he established the Gatty Laboratory (1884), the first marine laboratory in Great Britain, at St. Andrews. M‘lntosh and his co-workers first described in detail the pelagic eggs and larvae of the major British marine food-fishes, a critical aspect of fishery biology.
M‘Intosh received the Royal Medal in 1899, the Linncan Medal in 1924, and was president and active in the affairs of the Ray Society in London from 1913 through March 1931.