Fred finished his schooling at The King’s School, Parramatta. He excelled at sport and was the school’s 400m champion. He was also an excellent horseman and played polo competitively alongside the Ashton brothers with great success.

In 1927 Fred married Jean Pottie, and they lived at Denbigh until 1936, when they moved with their son Bruce to Woodside Park, Berry. The sisters Jean and Doris Pottie, whose family started Blue Cross Veterinary Products (including Potties White Ointment and Electric Oil), married the brothers Fred and Charles.

Woodside Park was bought for £5,500 and covered 247 acres at the foot of Moeyan Hill. It was paid for with the proceeds of the McIntosh brothers’ land at Badgerys Creek, now part of the new Western Sydney Airport.

After World War II Fred was elected the first president of the Berry Better Farmers League, which ran competitions with the Berry A&H Association to improve farming practice and the judging and presentation of dairy cattle at coastal shows. He was also a director of the progressive Berry Rural Co-operative.

Fred was always looking to improve his herd, and in 1946 Woodside Park was named Best Dairy Farm in the statewide Farmers and Settlers Competition. Fred’s cattle won many Sydney Royal championships, including champion cow in the Ayrshire and Holstein sections. Most notably his Ayrshire teams won the coveted Fresh Foods Challenge Gold Cup from the NSW Fresh Foods and Ice Company, which meant winning the breeders’ group of one bull and four cows in milk in the Sydney Royal’s interbreed dairy section three years running: 1938, 1939 and 1940.

As well as running a successful dairy, Fred served on the Berry Municipal Council and was elected Shire President in 1947; meetings were held in the committee rooms at the Berry Showground. After serving the Berry Show as a judge and steward, Fred became President of the Berry A&H Association in 1949. During his time on the committee he arranged floodlighting for the Berry Showground and trotting track. Jean was an active member of the Berry Show Society Women’s Auxiliary and judged floral exhibits.

In 1952 Fred, the South Coast Co-operatives of Dairy Processors and the Berry Better Farming League sponsored four young immigrant veterinary graduates from Germany and Ukraine. One of them, George Bouris, an expert in animal reproduction, was engaged after his Australian exams to help set up an artificial breeding centre for cattle at Wharf Road, Berry. Dr Bouris went on to open the first Berry Veterinary Clinic and became chief veterinary adviser to the Berry Artificial Breeding Centre. The centre grew and moved to the Princes Highway just south of Berry, and in 1958 it was opened by the Minister for Agriculture, E H Graham, and renamed the Graham Park Artificial Stock Breeding Centre: the first major artificial insemination and livestock genetics research facility in NSW. Fred was asked to lead a delegation of cattle breeders to secure dairy and beef cattle with superior genetics from the UK and Europe for Graham Park.

Fred was highly regarded as a cattle judge and judged at every Royal Show in Australia. In 1967 he judged the Ayrshire cattle at the Royal Highland Show in Scotland, an honour he valued greatly. In 1961 he was awarded an OBE for services to the dairy industry and agriculture in Australia.

Fred was a councillor of the RAS of NSW from 1950 to 1975 and vice president from 1965 to 1975. In 1959 the RAS told the Berry A&H Association that the Sydney Showground floodlights were to be replaced, and F McIntosh, J Devery and T Cochrane were appointed to buy and install the new lights, because Fred had earlier used the advice of the RAS’s chief electrical engineer to install the Berry Showground lighting successfully.

The McIntosh Pavilion at today’s Sydney Showground honours Fred and the four generations of the McIntosh family who have served on the council of the RAS of NSW. The Berry Show Society still remembers Fred’s contribution with the F A McIntosh Memorial sash, presented to the Supreme Champion dairy cow at every Berry Show.