686 
president’s address. 
Kibworth in Leicestershire. He studied medicine in London 
and Edinburgh, and practised in several places. On returning 
from taking the degree of M.D. at Leyden, he settled at Yar- 
mouth. 22 His daughter Lucy Aikin, born in 1781, thus relates 
the journey : — -“ I had just completed my third year when my 
father decided on a removal from Warrington to Yarmouth in 
Norfolk. My grandmother, her maid, my little brother, and 
myself were packed in a post-chaise ; my father accompanied 
us on horseback. It was Christmas week, the snow deep on the 
ground ; the whole distance was 240 miles across the country, 
and we were six days in accomplishing it. The last night we 
arrived at my aunt’s, Mrs. Barbauld's house at Palgrave, where 
my grandmother remained behind ; she died in a few days of 
the cold and fatigue of the journey.” 40 
Dr. Aikin stayed in Yarmouth a year, and then removed to 
London. Scarcely had he begun to practice there w'hen he 
accepted an invitation to return to Yarmouth. In 1786 he 
purchased the Cotman House at the north-west corner of Row 
94, which leads from King Street to Dene Side. 22 
His daughter says of the sojourn at Yarmouth : — “ The 
arrival of a new physician, already a writer of some distinction, 
of polished and unaffected manners, and endowed with powers 
and with tact which rendered his conversation attractive and 
acceptable to all, was an event of no small importance in the 
town of Yarmouth. . . . He was an admirable observer of 
nature— not a plant, not a bird, not a wild animal escaped him ; 
he knew them all, and taught his children to know and love 
them too.” 40 Such then was the author of the “Calendar of 
Nature ” and of “ The Woodland Companion.” 
Dr. Aikin returned to London in 1792, but in 1797 failing health 
obliged him to abandon his profession. He retired to Stoke 
Newington, residing in Church street at what is now St. Mary’s 
Mission House, with Mrs. Aikin and his daughter Lucy ; Mrs. 
Barbauld occupying the opposite house, now Uffell’s shop. In 
November 1819, when Sir James Smith was staying at the 
Old Hummums, Covent Garden, he wrote : — “On Thursday 1 
walked to Stoke Newington. Poor Dr. Aikin knew me and 
