ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Innes accessed those elites and the ways in which, within that context, he conceptualised and approached the work of the antiquary. It shows two relationships would, like Innes's friendships with Thomson and Laing, prove to be highly significant in terms of the character and reach of his antiquarian work. The chapter argues brief outline of Innes's life also contains some hints about his antiquarianism. The point is twofold: firstly, that Innes's privileged position and established reputation rested primarily upon his antiquarian activities. Then that neither position nor reputation was limited to antiquarian circles and that antiquarianism was itself a respected and integrated element of Scotland's civil society. This suggests that Innes's presentation of Scotland's past and his approach to historical sources both represented and influenced the intellectual mainstream. This in turn lends his antiquarian work weight as a means of understanding how the literati regarded Scottish history during the middle decades of the nineteenth century.
