When she was twelve years old she went to study at the Royal College of Music in London accompanied by her mother who had been her first teacher.
Her journey back was made via India and Ceylon where she met Walter Edward Moncrieff Paterson of Tilliefoure.
The Royal College of Music received money to fund performers from the Ivy Wigmore-Hay award.
[4] Wigmore gave thousands of pounds to the University of Western Australia after meeting Sir Frank Callaway.
[7] In Aberdeen she gave money that enable the Malcolm Hay Memorial Lecture to be made each year and to fund work to counter anti-semitism.
[1] The purpose-built library at the University of Western Australia she had funded was "repurposed" as a studio which inherited the Wigmore name.