Matthew James Higgins

Matthew James Higgins (4 December 1810 – 14 August 1868) was a British writer who used the pen name Jacob Omnium, which was the title of his first magazine article.

His first essay was a satire on dishonest business practices, entitled "Jacob Omnium, the Merchant Prince".

[1] He was particularly active on behalf of sufferers from the Great Famine in 1847, demanding more decisive action and volunteering as an agent of the British Relief Association.

He contributed regularly to the Peelite newspaper The Morning Chronicle and also to The Times, the Pall Mall Gazette and the Cornhill Magazine (under Thackeray's editorship).

Thackeray dedicated to him his novel The Adventures of Philip, and one of his ballads, Jacob Omnium's Hoss, deals with an incident in Higgins's career.