Wigner was the se­cond son of Bap­tist min­is­ter John Thom­as Wig­ner. He was named af­ter Dr. Murch, his fa­ther’s tu­tor and men­tor in the ear­ly days of his ministry. John moved to Brock­ley (Lon­don SE) with his fa­ther, who found­ed the Bap­tist Church there, one of sev­er­al he es­tab­lished dur­ing his min­is­try.

Wigner mar­ried El­len Turn­bull on Au­gust 27, 1878. They had twelve child­ren, of whom the first (Er­nest) died in in­fancy. He earned de­grees in both Arts and Sci­ence, and be­came a Sen­ior Of­fi­cer in the In­dia Of­fice, pre­vi­ous­ly the East India Com­pa­ny.

One of Wigner’s leg­a­cies was a scale mo­del of the Tab­er­na­cle in the Wil­der­ness, which he took to var­i­ous mis­sions on lec­ture tours around the United Kingdom. He had been about to do this in Char­lotte Cha­pel, Edin­burgh, Scot­land, in 1911, when the ill­ness that led to his death pre­vent­ed him. The ex­cel­lent Tab­er­na­cle scale mo­del is now the pro­per­ty of his grand­son, How­ard John Wig­ner; he is seek­ing a suit­a­ble mu­se­um, sem­in­ary or un­i­ver­si­ty, to which he can do­nate this scale mo­del, so that it can be seen by, and in­struct, a wid­er au­di­ence. For in­for­ma­tion, con­tact him through mail@guyett.force9.co.uk.

Sources

Hymns

1. Come to the Savior Now
2. Lo, a Loving Friend Is Waiting