Alfred Wigan

Alfred Sydney Wigan (24 March 1814 – 29 November 1878) was an English actor-manager who took part in the first Royal Command Performance before Queen Victoria on 28 December 1848.

Life Born at Blackheath to James Wigan, a teacher of languages and Secretary of the Dramatic Authors' Society, the actor and playwright Horace Wigan was his younger brother. Little is known of Wigan's early career, but it is believed he toured for a period as a singer. Using his middle name, he acted as Sidney or Sydney Wigan at the Lyceum Theatre in 1834, and 1835 he appeared with Louisa Cranstoun Nisbett at the Queen's Theatre. He then appeared under the name of Sidney Wigan with John Braham at the newly built St James's Theatre, creating the role of John Johnson in The Strange Gentleman by Charles Dickens. With Lucia Elizabeth Vestris he appeared from 1839 to 1844 at Covent Garden, playing the original Sir Otto of Steinberg in Love by James Sheridan Knowles.

At the Royal Strand Theatre he impersonated W. C. Macready as Iago in a parody of Othello. Next, he acted at the Lyceum Theatre with husband and wife actors Robert and Mary Anne Keeley. In 1847 Wigan joined the company of Benjamin Nottingham Webster at the Haymarket Theatre, for whom he played Sir Benjamin Backbite in Sheridan's The School for Scandal. For Webster he created the roles of Osborne in Westland Marston's The Heart and the World and Hector Mauléon in Webster's own play The Roused Lion.

When the Gaiety Theatre opened in December 1868 Wigan appeared as Adolphe Chavillard in On the Cards; also on that first bill were several companion pieces, including the successful Robert the Devil, by W. S. Gilbert, a burlesque of the opera Robert le Diable. In May 1870 Wigan appeared as Lord Foppington in John Hollingshead's The Man of Quality. His final performance was at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1874, after which he retired for the last time, apart from giving several private readings and an afternoon performance at the Gaiety Theatre of The House or the Home and The Bengal Tiger. his wife, Leonora survived him.