Dr William Wiggins President 1921-1923

Dr William Wiggins

Dr William D Wiggins MRCS LRCP

Joined the Poor Law Workers Trade Union on 25th February 1919, and was therefore one of it’s first members. He was elected as the Poor Law Officers Union vice President in January 1920 and then President from 1921 until 1923.

After leaving St Mary’s Hospital, London Dr Wiggins first appointment was with the Poor Law Guardians at Fulham in 1897. He was then appointed Assistant superintendent at Greenwich in 1898 and promoted to medical superintendent in 1911 a post he held for many years.

Described in the union’s journal as “quiet in manner, somewhat reserved”

NOTE:
The Poor Law Workers Trade Union (1918) became Poor Law Officers Union in 1922, in 1930 the National Union of County Officers and then Hospitals & Welfare Services Union in 1943. later COHSE (1946) and in 1993, UNISON

Dr William Wiggins NUCO President

Dr William Wiggins MRCS LRCP DPH

An early President of the Poor Law Workers Trade Union (PLWTU) Dr Wiggins was the most prominent doctor in the union's history.

After 1911 he was medical superintendent at Greenwich Infirmary and, in the years following the First World War, threw himself into the movement to establish a union for poor law employees.

He was defeated in the Presidential election, December 1923 by David Priestly (President 1923-1926) a hospital barber from Epsom

Dr Wiggins may have been the most active medical man in the union's history, but other doctors did join and participate.

In the 1930s a Medical Services Guild was established as part of NUCO to cater for their interests, which continued into COHSE.