Aikman, John (1691 - 1770) of the Ross, Hamilton, e. s. of Thomas Aikman of Broomhilton.
1746 - 7 - Rome
In 1767 Aikman wrote that he had lived half a year at Rome in 1747,1 the year his uncle, also John Aikman, retired from his merchant business at Leghorn; he discussed the possibility of Anne Forbes going to Rome to study painting, which Aikman and his brother William eventually helped to fund. He described the Abbé Grant as his 'worthy old acquaintance',2 and Aikman was also the friend of Gavin Hamilton (though not, apparently, in Italy).3
1. Forbes MSS (6 Mar. 1767). 2. Ibid. (22 Jun. 1768). 3. Ibid. (W. Carruthers, Jan. 1770).
Aikman, John (1679 - 1752), merchant, 3rd s. of John Aikman, advocate of Cairnie, Angus.
c.1709 - 52 Leghorn
The family firm of Aikman, merchants of Leghorn, were one of the fifteen houses in the trading colony which then provided banking and transport facilities.1 In 1724 Messrs Winder and Aikman are mentioned in Leghorn;2 in March 1743 Aikman's business partner was Marishall, whose name was replaced by that of William Aikman (his nephew) in May 1744.3 There is an undated portrait of him by an Italian hand in which he holds a letter addressed to him 'Merchant - At Leghorn' (priv. coll.). With the consul Burrington Goldsworthy, Francis Harriman and Henry Ragueneau he was deputed in 1746 to oversee 'the Work' [the establishment] of the British Protestant cemetery at Leghorn, their names remaining inscribed on the cemetery wall. In 1748 he gave the young Scottish painter Samuel Provan an introduction to Agostino Masucci in Rome.4 He had retired in 1747, when his nephew William took over the firm, and died five years later in Leghorn. His tomb, erected by his nephew, commemorated his thirty-eight years as a merchant in the city.5
1. Note by B. Skinner. 2. Abercairny MSS 464 (Jamineau and Rousseau, 27 Oct. 1724). 3. ASF se 2300. 4. Skinner, Scots in Italy, 29, and notes. 5. Leghorn Inscr., 15.