two children including the Rev. William Hay Aitken mentioned previously. Wilhelmina was the daughter of Royal Navy Capt. David McDowall-Grant (1761–1841) and Eleanor Frances Murray (1753–1775). Shortly after his marriage Aitken applied to the Bishop of Chester for re-instatement in active ministry, he was given a three-year probationary period "to prove his worthiness and serious intent". He finally, on 20 December 1840, took leave of his congregation at Zion Chapel, Waterloo Road, Liverpool, and returned to the Church of England. Later life In 1841 he was briefly at St James in Leeds and officiated from 1842 to 1844 as curate of the small parish of Perranuthnoe, near Marazion, in Cornwall, and then became the first incumbent of the new parish of Pendeen in the same county. In this remote district, on the Atlantic coast, he designed and built and under his own personal supervision, a cruciform church on the model of the ancient cathedral of Iona, the labour being supplied by tin miners and people of the neighbourhood, chiefly in their leisure hours. He was "anchored" here and never held any other preferment. Aitken was visited at Pendeen by the young William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army) and William Haslam. Haslam later recognised his debt to Aitken in the book From Death Unto Life. He was still a distinctive figure and was compared in style and looks to Robert Stephen Hawker aka "Hawker of Morwenstow". Death Aitken was returning to Pendeen from a short holiday when he died suddenly on the Great Western Railway platform at Paddington on 11 July 1873. He is buried in the family vault at Pendeen. Robert Aitken from the Dictionary of National Biography 1885–1900 "Aitken's services were often sought by the incumbents of other churches in large towns, and he was well known throughout England as a fervent preacher. A fine presence and a commanding voice, combined with untiring zeal and sympathy for others, concealed rashness of judgment. His religious creed was taken partly from the teachings of the Methodist church, and partly from the views of the Tractarians: he wished the one class to undergo the process of ‘conversion,’ the other to be imbued with sacramental beliefs. Whether his opinions were in accord with the principles of the established church or not, was fiercely disputed both before and after his death. His sermons and pamphlets, as well as the replies which they provoked,