John R. Wigham was born in 1829 of Quaker parents John Tertius and Jane Wigham in Edinburgh. He was educated there to the age of 15 when he was sent to Ireland as apprentice to his brother-in-law Joshua Edmundson's business in Capel Street in Dublin. This was a light engineering and household furnishing business. At that time the company had just started producing domestic gas generating plants for large houses. The company also manufactured fittings for city gas in Dublin for lighting streets and houses. The company had a reputation for high quality fittings.
In 1848, four years after he started his apprenticeship, Joshua died and Wigham, aged 18, took over the firm of Edmundsons & Co. and supported his sister and family. The business prospered as the demand for coal gas plants increased. He became involved in municipal gas and was appointed a director of the Allied and Dublin Gas Company, the original Dublin Gas.
In 1863 Wigham was given a grant from the Dublin Ballast Board, the predecessor body to the Commissioners of Irish Lights, to develop gas lights for lighthouses. By 1865 he had designed a 'crocus burner' (the shape of the gas flame) which had 30 gas jets in a cluster. The Dublin Ballast Board and the British Board of Trade sanctioned the use of these as the means of illumination for lighthouses.
In June 1865 Baily Lighthouse was the first to be fitted with a Wigham light, four times more powerful than the standard oil lights of the period. He went on to design more powerful lights with multiple burners which could be adjusted from 28 jets up to 108 jets (according to weather conditions.) This improved version was fitted to the Baily Lighthouse in 1868. Dr John Tyndall, Scientific Advisor to Trinity House, reported that this light was 13 times more powerful than the most brilliant light then known.
In the same year an improved composite light was fitted to Wicklow Head Lighthouse. A further refinement of the design was the introduction of control of the gas by clockwork. This allowed for intermittent burn providing a flashing light with a fixed lens system.
Rockabill Lighthouse was fitted with a combination of revolving flashing lens and intermittent flashing burner to produce the world's first group flashing lighthouse. Wigham lights were fitted wherever suitable and there were ultimately 13 gas-fired lighthouses around Ireland and several in Great Britain.
In 1872 he proposed superimposing lenses, called biform, and later triform and quadriform lenses, adding power according to need. A quadriform system was used at Galley Head, Co. Cork, which at over 1 million candlepower was the most powerful light in the world when installed in 1879.
Shortly after this Trinity House copied one of Wigham's lens patents for their new Eddystone Lighthouse but declined to pay a nominal royalty of one shilling a year. Wigham eventually received £2,500 compensation. Subsequently, the British Government compulsorily purchased all Wigham's patents.
There was considerable rivalry between James Douglass, the Engineer at Trinity House, and Wigham. Douglass reported on the working and effectiveness of Wigham's lights, suggesting that they were ineffective or useless. This was at variance with the reports of Dr John Tyndall.
In 1885 experimental lighthouse trials were held at South Foreland, near Dover, using electric arc lamps, a Wigham gas lamp, a Douglass gas lamp and a Douglass oil lamp. At these trials the Wigham light was declared to be inferior to the Douglass gas light and the electric light. Wigham was debarred from attending the trials but Douglass as chief Engineer of Trinity House was allowed to attend. Dr Tyndall objected saying either both parties or neither should attend but he was overruled. Later it was discovered that the operators of the Wigham light had been instructed to restrict the amount of gas allowed to enter the lamp! Subsequently Dr Tyndall resigned his post as Scientific Advisor in protest.
In 1874 a 68 jet gas burner and biform lens was installed outside the House of Commons, London. The light was used to signal that a vote was in progress. Members not in the House at the time could check the light and return for the vote. This lasted for 20 years until replaced with a newer version of his design in 1893. Wigham was offered a knighthood on two occasions but refused to accept in accordance with his Quaker principles.
Wigham also developed light buoys which required little maintenance as the design involved a pulley system which delivered a continuous fresh wick to the burner and thus avoided the need for trimming. This allowed the lights to run initially for 31 days without attention, and ultimately for 90 days. These Wigham buoys and tower lamps and beacons were adopted throughout the world and were particularly successful in the Pacific Ocean where some were in service to the mid 20th century.
The last Irish lighthouse to use gas was Mew Island from which the system was removed in 1928. Wigham also designed gas fog signals and sirens, acetylene lights, and was working on electric lamps when he died in 1906. Shortly after his death, his foreman in the lighthouse section of Edmundsons took over the business. It then continued as F. Barrett & Co. under the management of the late Leslie Green and is run today by Neil Marr.

References:
Wigham Family papers;
John R Wigham, Inventor of the Most Powerful Light at Galley Head by Billy Wigham (Journal of Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, 2004);
Brilliance and Prejudice-The John R. Wigham story by Thomas Tag (Thomas A. Tag, 6262 Blossom Park Drive, Dayton, OH 45449 USA, 2005);
John Richardson Wigham-Pioneer of Lighthouse Technology by Leslie Green (Journal of the Maritime Institute, 1968).