university affairs. In September 1873 he succeeded Edward White Benson as headmaster of Wellington College, a post which he filled for twenty years. Though he possessed many of the qualifications of a successful schoolmaster, and won the affection of those masters and boys who were brought in close contact with him, his cold manner and unimpressive physique stood in the way of anything like general popularity. In spite of vicissitudes, however, he guided the college safely through some perilous crises and left it better equipped and organised than he found it. His scanty leisure was devoted to an elaborate edition of ‘Horace’ (vol. i. 1874; vol. ii. 1893), which bore tribute to his fine scholarship. He resigned Wellington in the summer of 1893, and in January 1894 was appointed dean of Lincoln in succession to William John Butler. Here he did excellent work, both in his official capacity in the cathedral and in the city at large. His sermons, exquisitely delivered and given in fastidiously chosen language, had been widely appreciated both at New College and Wellington, and he was chosen select preacher before the University of Oxford for four different years. Wickham also took a prominent share in the debates of convocation and devoted himself to the better organisation both of primary and secondary education in the diocese of Lincoln. He was one of the leading spirits on the education settlement committee formed in 1907 to bring nonconformists and churchmen together. In general politics he was a strong liberal, and his marriage to the daughter of Gladstone placed him in close relations with the liberal party; he followed his father-in-law with absolute faith and devotion. He died on 18 Aug. 1910 at Sierre in Switzerland, whither he had gone with his family for a holiday, and there he was buried, Dr. Randall Davidson, archbishop of Canterbury, performing the service.
He was married on 27 Dec. 1873 to Agnes, eldest daughter of William Ewart Gladstone, by whom he had a family of two sons and three daughters; she survived him. An oil painting of Wickham by Sir William Richmond hangs in the hall at New College.
Besides the edition of ‘Horace’ already referred to, his published works include: 1. ‘Notes and Questions on the Church Catechism,’ 1892. 2. ‘The Prayer-Book,’ 1895, intended for the middle form in public schools. 3. ‘Wellington College Sermons,’ 1897. 4. ‘Horace for English Readers,’ in the form of a prose translation, 1903. 5. ‘The Epistle to the Hebrews,’ in English, with introduction and notes, 1910. 6. ‘Revision of Rubrics, its Purpose and Principles,’ in the ‘Prayer-Book Revision’ series, 1910.
[A Memoir of Edward Charles Wickham, by the Rev. Lonsdale Ragg, B.D., 1911; The Times, 19 Aug. 1910; Spectator, 30 Dec. 1911; personal knowledge.]
WIGGINS, JOSEPH (1832–1905), explorer of the sea-route to Siberia, born at Norwich on 3 Sept. 1832, was son of Joseph Wiggins (d. 1843) by his wife Anne Petty (d. 1847). The father, a driver and later proprietor of coaches serving the London-Bury-St. Edmunds-Norwich Road, established himself in 1838–9 at Bury, where he combined inn-keeping with his coaching business, then beginning to suffer from railway competition. At his death in 1843 his widow, left with small means, returned with her family of six sons and three daughters to Norwich, where Joseph was sent to Farnell's school. At the age of fourteen he went to Sunderland as an apprentice to his uncle, Joseph Potts, a shipowner. He rose rapidly, being master of a ship at twenty-one and subsequently owning cargo-vessels. In 1868 he temporarily left the sea and became a board of trade examiner in navigation and seamanship at Sunderland. He was now first attracted by the ruling interest of his life—the possibility of establishing a trade route between western Europe and Asiatic Russia (Siberia), by way of the Arctic seas and the great rivers which drain into them from the land. The overland route (by sledge and caravan) was slow, erratic, and expensive, and the resources of Siberia, largely on that account, were little developed. The sea route was held, as the result of a Russian survey, to be impracticable owing to ice and fog. Wiggins argued that a branch of the warm Atlantic drift ought for a certain period of the year to open up the western entrances to the Kara Sea and (in conjunction with the outflow of the great rivers) a route through the sea itself. After full inquiry he chartered and fitted at his own charges a steamer of 103 tons and sailed from Dundee on 3 June 1874. (Sir) Henry Morton Stanley was anxious but unable to accompany him. On June 28 his ship entered upon her struggle with the ice; it was not until 5 Aug. that he rounded
