Wingate started work in the coal-fields near his home in Cowglen, Renfrewshire when he was nine, and at 17 he was the main breadwinner for his mother and family.
He married Janet Craig in 1850 and had 11 children, including Walter who became a poet and teacher.
In this year his Poems and Songs (1862) was published by William Blackwood, favourably reviewed, then followed by Annie Weir (1866).
Lily Neil appeared in 1879, and was followed by another volume of Poems and Songs (1883).
This article about a Scottish writer, poet or playwright is a stub.