AustLit

The firm E. S. Wigg was founded by Edgar Smith Wigg in Adelaide in 1849 as a business selling books and homeopathic medicines. It became E. S. Wigg and Son in 1867 when Edward Neale Wigg joined the business, and has continued under that name even though there have been no Wiggs in the business since 1910.

From its original premises in Rundle Street, Adelaide, E. S. Wigg and Son developed as a leading South Australian bookseller and stationer. The firm began printing after William Laidlaw Davidson, later a son-in-law of E. S. Wigg, joined in 1873, and it opened a large factory at Southwark and a stationary warehouse at Apollo Place. A London office was opened in 1874, and in the same year Wigg purchased the business of pioneer South Australian bookseller Charles Platt. The business expanded into Western Australia, and by 1909 it was the largest bookseller, stationer and printer there, with branches in Perth, Kalgoorlie and Fremantle. From 1910 the Davidson family had full ownership of the company.

At various periods E. S. Wigg has been an active publisher, notably publishing albums of coloured lithographs of Adelaide and South Australia, but also the South Australian Yearbook, almanacs, schoolbooks, music, maps, reminiscences and cookbooks. In the 1880s the firm also published reprints of the works of popular authors, and titles of general interest.

In 2006, E. S. Wigg and Son Pty Ltd, primarily a printer of advertising material, paper stationery and envelopes, has offices in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.