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JOHN AIKIN (1747-1822)

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Originally appearing in Volume V01, Page 437 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JOHN AIKIN (1747-1822)  ,
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English doctor and writer, was born at Kibworth-Harcourt, and received his elementary
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education at the Noncomformist academy at
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Warrington, where his
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father was tutor . He studied
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medicine in the university of
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Edinburgh, and in
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London under Dr William Hunter . He practised as a surgeon at Chester and Warrington . Finally,he went to Leyden, took the degree of M.D . (1780), and in 1784 established himself as a doctor in Yarmouth . In 1792 he re-moved to London, where he practised as a consulting physician . But he concerned himself more with the advocacy of liberty of conscience than with his professional duties, and he began at an early period to devote himself to
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literary pursuits . In
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con-junction with his
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sister, Mrs Barbauld (q.v.), he published a popular series of volumes entitled Evenings at Home (6 vols., 1792-1795), excellently adapted for elementary
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family
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reading, which were translated into almost every
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European language . In 1798 Dr Aikin retired from professional
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life and devoted himself with
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great industry to various literary undertakings, among which his General Biography (to vols., 1799-1815) holds a conspicuous place . Besides these, he published Biog .
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Memoirs of Medicine (178o) ; Lives of John Selden and Archbishop Usher (1812) and other
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works . He edited the Monthly
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Magazine from 1796 to 1807, and conducted a paper called the
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Athenaeum from 1807 to 1809, when it was discontinued .

Aikin died in 1822 . His daughter,

LucY AIKIN (1781-1864), born at Warrington on the 6th of November 1781, had some repute as a
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historical writer . After producing various books for the young, and a novel, Lorimer (1814), she published in 1818 her Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth, which passed through several
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editions . This was followed by Memoirs of the Court of James I . (1822), Memoirs of the Court of Charles I . (1833) and a Life of Addison (1843) .
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Miss Aikin died at
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Hampstead, where she had lived for
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forty years, on the 29th of
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January 1864 . See a Memoir of John Aikin, with selections of his
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miscellaneous pieces (1823), by his daughter; and the Memoirs, Miscellanies and Letters of Lucy Aikin (1864), including her correspondence (1826-1842) with William Ellery Channing, edited by P . H . Le Breton .

End of Article: JOHN AIKIN (1747-1822)
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