Henry Arthur Wiggin (1852-1917) of of Henry Wiggin and Co
1917 Obituary [1]
SIR HENRY ARTHUR WIGGIN, Bart., Vice-President of the Institute since its foundation in 1908 until his retirement from the office in 1912, died suddenly on May 2, 1917, at his residence, Walton Hall, Eccleshall, Staffordshire, on the eve of his sixty-fifth birthday.
He had been in indifferent health for some time, but was well enough on the day before his death to attend a meeting of the North Staffordshire Railway Company, of which he was Chairman.
The deceased baronet, who was the eldest son of the late Sir Henry Wiggin of Harborne, was born on May. 3, 1852. He was educated at King's College School, London, and at M. Sellig's school at Vevey, Switzerland. On leaving Switzerland he proceeded to the Royal Mining Academy, Freiberg, Saxony, but was there only a few months in consequence of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, which resulted in the academy being closed. Subsequently he went to the Royal School of Mines in London, where he studied Metallurgy under Dr. Percy.
In 1871 he entered his father's firm of Henry Wiggin & Co., metal refiners, George Street, Birmingham, and four years later he was taken into partnership.
When the business was converted into a private limited company in 1892 he became Managing Director, and this position he held for seven years. During this time he had resided at Harborne, but in 1899 he purchased the Walton Hall estate, and went to Staffordshire to live. He relinquished the active management of the business in Birmingham, but remained to the last a director of the company.
For many years Sir Henry took great interest in the public work of the city of Birmingham, but it was the social and philanthropic aspects which mostly appealed to him. He entered the Town Council as a representative of Rotten Park Ward in 1890, and was appointed a member of the Gas Committee.
Largely interested in the pursuit of agriculture, Sir Henry took an active share in the work of the Birmingham Agriculture Exhibition Society for forty years. He was elected a guardian of the Birmingham Assay Office in 1883, and a warden a year later ; he was chairman of Messrs. D. F. Taylor & Co., Newhall Hill ; a director of Messrs. J. B. Brooks & Co., as well as of the North Staffordshire Railway Company. Sir Henry was appointed a magistrate for Staffordshire in 1880, at which time Harborne formed part of that county ; in 1895 he became a Deputy Lieutenant, and he served as High Sheriff of the county in 1896. From the time he went to Walton Hall to live, in 1899, he took a keener interest in Staffordshire affairs, and served for some years on the County Joint Committee, and also as Chairman of the Eccleshall Bench.
Sir Henry, who was deeply interested in natural history as a hobby, was a man of sound business ability, and highly respected in the city and in Staffordshire. He married in 1878 the youngest daughter of the late Mr. C. K. Cope of Kinnerton Court, Radnor, and the title now devolves on their eldest son, Captain Charles Richard Henry Wiggin, Staffordshire Yeomanry, who last year married a daughter of the late Sir W. Jaffray.