Catalogue description [?] From [Rev.] John Aikin, D.D. (1713-1780)

It is probable that this letter was written by Rev. John Aikin rather than by his son Dr. John Aikin (1747-1822). Rev. John Aikin died in 1780, exact date not known, and his son also appears to have been living in Warrington in 1780. However from a note in Register of the Octagon Chapel, Liverpool 1762-1780 [transcr. James Boardman], [1903] (H 929 3 OCT), p. [3], it appears that Rev. John Aikin concerned himself with the sermons of Rev. Nicholas Clayton - "... Aikin is credited with frequently saying that he "never heard a sermon from Mr. Clayton that was not fit to be sent immediately to the press". A facsimile of Rev. John Aikin's signature appears in H.A. Bright A Historical Sketch of Warrington Academy in Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Vol. XI, 1858-59, [facing] p. 1.

This letter gives a critical analysis of one of Nicholas Clayton's sermons which the author had sent to the writer of the letter.

See p. 71, also Dictionary of National Biography, 1885, Vol. 1, p. 185 and H.A. Bright op. cit. Aikin's son, Dr. John Aikin, a physician, according to Bright, p. 17, lectured for a while at Warrington Academy in chemistry and anatomy. Among other works, he was author of A Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles around Manchester, 1795.

See D.N.B. op. cit., pp. 185.

Educated at Aberdeen University, Aikin was influenced by "the opinions of the tutors in divinity which led him to that system of Low Arianism ... which afterwards became the distinguishing feature of the Warrington Academy ...". After ordination Aikin ministered to a dissenting congregation in Market Harborough. Warrington Academy was opened in 1757 and Aikin was appointed a tutor there. The Academy "... regarded as the cradle of Unitarianism ... was but short lived yet formed during the twenty-nine years of its existence the centre of the liberal politics and the literary taste of the County of Lancashire ...". Aikin resigned through ill-health in 1780 and died shortly after.