# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Wigham, John Richardson

​WIGHAM, JOHN RICHARDSON (1829–1906), inventor, born at 5 South Gray Street, Edinburgh, on 15 Jan. 1829, was youngest son in the family of four sons and three daughters of John Wigham, shawl manufacturer, of Edinburgh, and member of the Society of Friends, by his wife Jane Richardson (d 1830).
After slender schooling at Edinburgh, he removed at fourteen to Dublin, where he privately continued his studies, while serving as apprentice in the hardware and manufacturing business of his brother-in-law, Joshua Edmundson. The business, subsequently known as ‘Joshua Edmundson & Co.,’ passed, on Edmundson's death, under Wigham's control. It grew rapidly, a branch being opened in London which was eventually taken over by a separate company as ‘Edmundson's Electricity Corporation,’ with Wigham as chairman. In Dublin the firm devoted itself largely to experiments in gas-lighting, Wigham being particularly successful in designing small gas-works suitable for private houses and public institutions. In addition to his private business he held various engineering posts, and as engineer to the Commercial Gas Company of Ireland designed the gas-works at Kingstown. In the commercial life of Dublin he soon played a prominent part. He was from 1866 till his death a director of the Alliance and Dublin Consumers' Gas Company, director and vice-chairman of the Dublin United Tramways Company from 1881 to his death, and member of council (1879), secretary (1881–93), and eventually president (1894–6) of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce.
Wigham is mainly memorable as the inventor of important applications of gas to lighthouse illumination. In 1863 he was granted a small sum for experiments by the board of Irish lights, and in 1865 a system invented by him was installed at the Howth lighthouse near Dublin, the gas being manufactured on the spot. Its main advantages were that it dispensed with the lamp glass essential to the 4-wick Fresnel oil lamp of 240 candle-power then in universal use, while the power of the light could be increased or decreased at will, a 28-jet flame, which gave sufficient light for clear weather, being increased successively to a 48-jet, 68-jet, 88-jet, and 108-jet flame of 2923 candle-power on foggy nights. Though highly valued in Ireland, the system was condemned on trial by Thomas Stevenson [q. v.], engineer to the Scottish board of lights. It was made more effective, however, in 1868 by Wigham's invention of the powerful ‘composite burner,’ and in 1869 its further employment in Ireland was strongly advocated by John Tyndall [q. v.] in his capacity of scientific adviser to Trinity House and the board of trade. Wigham's ingenuity also acted as a powerful stimulant to rival patentees, leading to various improvements in oil apparatus by Sir James Nicholas Douglass [q. v. Suppl. I] and others.
In 1871 Wigham invented the first of the many group-flashing arrangements since of service in enabling seamen to distinguish between different lighthouses. His arrangement was adopted at Galley Head, Mew Head, and Tory Island off the Irish coast. In 1872 a triform light of his invention was installed experimentally at the High Lighthouse, Haisbro', Norfolk; but its further adoption in English lighthouses was discouraged by a committee of Trinity House in 1874. The board of Irish lights, however, continued to favour Wigham's system, and in 1878 they installed at Galley Head a powerful quadriform light of his with four tiers of superposed lenses and a 68-jet burner in the focus of each tier. In 1883 the board of trade appointed a lighthouse illuminants committee to consider the relative merits of gas, oil, and electric light. For some years Tyndall had felt that Sir James Douglass had used his influence as engineer to Trinity House for the furtherance of his own patents and to the disadvantage of Wigham's system. He now protested that, as rival patentees, Douglass and Wigham ought both to be members of the lighthouse illuminants committee or ought both to be excluded. His objection was overruled, and consequently he resigned his position of scientific adviser to the board of trade in March 1883. A bitter controversy followed in the press between Tyndall and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, president of the board of trade. On Tyndall's resignation ​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.]
S. E. F.