Aikin

Aikin, JOHN, son of a Unitarian tutor, was born at Kibworth, Leicestershire, 15th January 1747, and after studying at Edinburgh and London, took his M.D. degree at Leyden University (1780). He practised in Chester, Warrington, Yarmouth, and London; but in 1798 retired to Stoke-Newington, where he died 7th December 1822. A friend of Priestley, Darwin, John Howard, and Southey, he was a voluminous author; his works including Lives of Howard, Selden, and Usher; and the General Biography (10 vols. 1799-1815); and the well-known Evenings at Home (6 vols. 1792-95), written in conjunction with his sister, Mrs Barbauld (q.v.).—His daughter, LUCY AIKIN, was born at Warrington, 6th November 1781, and died at Hampstead, 29th January 1864. She was author of Epistles on Women (1810); Lorimer, a Tale (1814); Memoir of John Aikin, M.D. (1823); Memoirs of the Courts of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. (6 vols. 1818-33); and Life of Addison (1843). See her Memoirs, Miscellanies, and Letters (1864).