the lighthouse illuminants committee collapsed. A new committee, of which Douglass was a member, was appointed by Trinity House, and declared after extensive experiments at South Foreland for oil and electric light in preference to gas. Wigham protested against his lack of opportunity of demonstrating the advantages of his system, and claimed that his rival Douglass, who had condemned in official reports Wigham's invention of superposed lenses, afterwards employed them for the improvement of his own oil apparatus. Wigham eventually received 2500l. from the board of trade as compensation for the infringement of his patent. Among other of Wigham's inventions were fog-signals and gas-driven sirens, a ‘sky-flashing arrangement,’ and a ‘continuous pulsating light’ in connection with his system of gas-illumination for lighthouses, and a ‘lighted buoy’ or ‘beacon’ in which, using oil as the illuminant, he obtained, by imparting motion to the wick, a continuous light needing attention only once in thirty days.
Wigham was a member of the Dublin Society and of the Royal Irish Academy, an associate member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. He read papers on ‘Gas as a Lighthouse Illuminant’ and kindred subjects before the Society of Arts, the British Association, the Dublin Society, and the Shipmasters' Society. In politics he was a unionist and spoke at public meetings in opposition to home rule. He was also a zealous advocate of temperance. As a member of the Society of Friends he twice refused knighthood in 1887. He died on 16 Nov. 1906 after some four years' illness at his residence, Albany House, Monkstown, co. Dublin, and was buried in the Friends' burial ground, Temple Hill, Blackrock, co. Dublin. He married on 4 Aug. 1858 Mary, daughter of Jonathan Pim of Dublin, M.P. for Dublin city from 1865 to 1874, and had issue six sons and four daughters, of whom three sons and three daughters survived him. An enlarged photograph is in the council room of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce.
[The Irish Times, 17 Nov. 1906; Journal of Gas Lighting, 20 Nov. 1906; W. T. Jeans, Lives of the Electricians, 1887; Nineteenth Century, July 1888; Fortnightly Review, Dec. 1888 and Feb. 1889; Letters to The Times by Prof. Tyndall and others on lighthouse illuminants, 1885; paper by Wigham read before the Shipmasters' Society on 15 March 1895; T. Williams, Life of Sir James N. Douglass; Journal of Society of Arts, 1885–6; The Nautical Magazine, 1883 and 1884; art. on Lighthouses in Encyc. Brit. 11th edit.]
WIGRAM, WOOLMORE (1831–1907), campanologist, the fifth son of ten children of Money Wigram (1790–1873), director of the Bank of England, of Manor Place, Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, and Mary, daughter of Charles Hampden Turner, of Rooks Nest, Godstone, Surrey, was born on 29 Oct. 1831 at Devonshire Place, London. His father was elder brother of Sir James Wigram [q. v.], of Joseph Cotton Wigram [q. v.], and of George Vicesimus Wigram [q. v.]. Of his brothers, Charles Hampden (1826–1903) was knighted in 1902, and Clifford (1828–1898) was director of the bank of England. Wigram entered Rugby school in August 1844, and matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1850, graduating B.A. in 1854 and proceeding M.A. in 1858. Among his intimate friends at Cambridge was John Gott, afterwards bishop of Truro [q. v. Suppl. II]. Taking holy orders in 1855, he was curate of Hampstead (1855–64), vicar of Brent Pelham with Furneaux Pelham, Hertfordshire (1864–76), and rector of St. Andrew's with St. Nicholas and St. Mary's, Hertford (1876–97). From 1877 to 1897 he was rural dean of Hertford, and in 1886 was made hon. canon of St. Albans, where he lived from 1898 till his death, and was an active member of the chapter. A high churchman, Wigram was long a member of the English Church Union.
Wigram was an enthusiastic campanologist, and became an authority on the subject. A series of articles in ‘Church Bells’ were published collectively in 1871 under the title of ‘Change-ringing Disentangled and Management of Towers’ (2nd edit. 1880).
In his earlier days Wigram was an enthusiastic Alpine climber. He was a member of the Alpine Club from 1858 to 1868. His most memorable feat was the first successful ascent, in the company of Thomas Stewart Kennedy (with Jean Baptiste Croz and Josef Marie Krönig as guides), of La Dent Blanche on 18 July 1862 (see his own account in Memoirs, 1908, pp. 81–95; T. S. Kennedy in Alpine Journal, 1864, i. 33–9: cf. Whymper's Scrambles amongst the Alps, chap. xiv.).
Wigram died from the effects of influenza at his residence in Watling Street, St. Albans, on 19 Jan. 1907, and was buried in St. Stephen's churchyard there. He married
