acts, adapted from ‘L'Aïeule;’ ‘Friends or Foes,’ a comedy in four acts, from M. Sardou; ‘The Life Chase,’ a drama in five acts, by Oxenford and H. Wigan; ‘Observation and Flirtation,’ a comedy in one act; ‘The Real and the Ideal,’ a comedy in one act; ‘A Southerner just arrived,’ a farce in one act; ‘Taming the Truant,’ a comedy in three acts.
[Personal knowledge; History of Theatre Royal, Dublin, 1876; Scott and Howard's Blanchard; Pascoe's Dramatic List; Era, 8 Aug. 1885; Sunday Times, various years; Era Almanack, 1886; Morley's Journal of a London Playgoer.]
WIGAN, JOHN (1696–1739), physician and author, son of William Wigan, rector of Kensington, Middlesex, was born on 31 Jan. 1695–6. In 1710 he was admitted to Westminster school, and thence proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on 15 June 1714. He graduated B.A. on 6 Feb. 1718–19, M.A. on 22 March 1720–1, and M.B. and M.D. (6 July) in 1727. Some verses of his occur among the academical lamentations on the death of Queen Anne in 1714, and of Dr. Radcliffe in 1715; besides these he wrote the lines on the death of Dean Aldrich which are published in Vincent Bourne's edition of the dean's poems, and four at least of the exercises in the ‘Carmina Quadragesimalia’ (i. 8, 57–8, 62–3, and 104–5) are ascribed to him. On 5 Oct. 1726 he was admitted principal of New Inn Hall, Oxford, and about the same time was appointed secretary to the Earl of Arran, the chancellor of the university.
He was admitted a candidate at the College of Physicians on 12 April 1731, and a fellow on 3 April 1732, when he resigned his office at New Inn Hall and settled in London. He resided in Craig Court. He was elected physician to Westminster Hospital in 1733, and retained his office there until 1737. In 1738 he accompanied his friend Mr. (afterwards Sir Edward) Trelawny [q. v.] to Jamaica, in the double capacity of physician and secretary. He there married Mary, daughter of John Douce, a planter in the island, and widow of Philip Wheeler of Jamaica, and by her had one daughter, Mary Trewlawny Wigan. He died in Jamaica on 5 Dec. 1739, aged 43. His memorial, a black marble inscribed slab, still exists in the cathedral church of St. Catherine, Spanish Town. His portrait, a three-quarter length by Hogarth, is in the possession of the Rev. W. W. Harvey, rector of Ewelme, Oxfordshire.
Dr. Wigan was well known in his day as a writer. As early as 1718 he published a translation of a treatise upon the cure of fevers, from the original of Longinus (‘De Curandis Febribus continuis Liber,’ edited by J. W., 1718, 8vo). His name will always be held in respect by admirers of Aretæus, for his splendid folio edition of that author, which was issued from the Clarendon Press in 1723. Maittaire compiled the index to it, and a great part of the expense was defrayed by Dr. Freind, to whom it is dedicated. When Boerhaave published his edition of the same author in 1735, he availed himself of Wigan's labours, and made a handsome acknowledgment of the circumstance. Wigan compiled the index to P. Petit's ‘In tres priores Aretæi Cappadocis libros Commentarii,’ 1726, 4to; and had a share in editing Dr. Freind's works (Opera Omnia Medica, edited by J. W., 1733, fol.). Besides writing the ‘Life of Freind’ in choice Latin, he translated the ‘History of Physick’ into Latin and prefixed to the folio edition of 1732 a long alcaic ode, dated 15 July 1727, which he had composed on Freind's appointment as physician to the queen.
[List of Queen's Scholars of St. Peter's, Westminster, by Joseph Welch; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Carmina Quadragesimalia; Cat. Brit. Mus. Libr.; Munk's Coll. of Phys.]
WIGG, LILLY (1749–1828), botanist, was born at Smallburgh, Norfolk, on 25 Dec. 1749, being the son of a poor shoemaker in that village. He received a good village education, and was brought up to his father's trade, but removed to Yarmouth before he was twenty, where until 1801 he kept a small school in Fighting-cock Row. He acquired some knowledge of Latin, Greek, and French, was a skilled arithmetician, and wrote a beautifully neat ‘copperplate’ hand; while his love of botany and skill as a collector procured him the acquaintance of Dr. John Aikin, Thomas Jenkinson Woodward, Sir James Edward Smith, and Dawson Turner. He was chiefly devoted to the study of algæ, in which he seems to have initiated Dawson Turner. In 1801 Turner engaged him as a subordinate clerk in Messrs. Gurneys & Turner's bank at Yarmouth, a position which he occupied for the rest of his life. For nearly twenty years Wigg was collecting material for a history of esculent plants, some of which exists in manuscript in the botanical department of the British Museum, while a manuscript ‘Flora Cibaria,’ consisting of extracts from books of travel, with a pencil sketch of the compiler taken by Mrs. Dawson Turner in 1804, is at Kew. Wigg also studied the birds and fishes of the Norfolk coast. He was elected an associate of the Linnean Society as early as
