Life
Wigginton was born at Eton on 22 August 1826, the son of W.L. Wigginton. He worked an architect in Derby and Dudley before moving to London in 1860, where he ran his practice from in Cornhill in the City. He was the Derby agent of the British Fire and Life Assurance Company. He became an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1854 and a Fellow in 1857.
He was the author of Sanitary Reform: Model Town Dwellings for the Industrious Classes (1850) and a 36-page pamphlet entitled The Late Archidiaconal Visitation of Bromsgrove and the Injustice and Illegality of Visitation Fees. A two volume work called England's Operative Homes was announced in 1851. His plans for working class housing, as exhibited at a bookseller's in Derby in 1850, envisaged a block built around three sides of a quadrangle, with three storeys, each accommodating fifteen families. The dwellings were designed to be entirely fireproof, and ventilated by a system of Wigginton's own invention. Access to the upper floors was to be via two stone staircases, leading to open balconies which were carried around the quadrangle at each level.
He was one of six candidates shortlisted for the post of architect and surveyor to the London School Board in 1871. The post went to E.R. Robson.
Wigginton was a freemason, and a member of the Volunteer Corps, receiving a commission as Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Tower Hamlets Artillery, which he resigned on 29 October 1873. He died at his home, Buckhurst, Forest Hill, on 8 January 1890 and was buried in the family vault at Dudley.
