Joshua Ingham Ikin

Joshua Ingham Ikin (1813 to 1887) was a Leeds surgeon who gave and helped buy Cypriot pottery for the museum of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. Anna Reeve describes him as an FRCS who practised at the Leeds School of Medicine, an Ordinary Member of the Society, long a member of its Council and vice-president or president between 1871 and 1878. He lectured mostly on medical subjects, once on "the study of Antiquities, in connexion with Science and the useful Arts"¹. She finds no sustained antiquarian interest in him.

In 1870 he gave the museum a White Painted bowl, entered in the Council's report for 1870/71 as a "Graeco-Phoenician Patera, Cyprus" (now LEEDM.D.1964.0352). Reeve thinks it most likely came from the collection of T. B. Sandwith, without being able to show it, and suggests that John Holmes arranged the gift¹.

At the start of his presidency in 1875 he raised a special fund of £100 from 21 donors. Of that, £14 bought "Cypriot pottery", against £5 for a large amphora given by William Aldam. The Council's report links the purchase to the pottery Sandwith had shown at the Yorkshire Exhibition. Holmes was that exhibition's Honorary Secretary and the payment passed through him, and Ikin sat on its Fine Art Committee. Reeve cannot say whether the curator had asked for the purchase or was presented with it¹. Ikin printed his presidential address in 1876².