Ralph Follett Wigram CMG (/reɪf ˈwɪɡrəm/ rayf WIG-rəm; 23 October 1890 – 31 December 1936) was a British government official in the Foreign Office.
The autobiography of Valentine Lawford, who worked under Wigram in the Central Department, describes him variously as "the authentic local deity" and "the departmental volcano".
Winston Churchill wrote: I had also formed a friendship with Ralph Wigram, then the rising star of the Foreign Office and in the centre of all its affairs.
He had reached a level in that department which entitled him to express responsible opinions upon policy, and to use a wide discretion in his contacts, official and unofficial.
He was a charming and fearless man, and his convictions, based upon profound knowledge and study, dominated his being.He saw as clearly as I did, but with more certain information, the awful peril which was closing in upon us.
For my part, with the many connections I now had in France, in Germany, and other countries, I had been able to send him a certain amount of information which we examined together.From 1933 onwards, Wigram became keenly distressed at the policy of the government and the course of events.
While his official chiefs formed every day a higher opinion of his capacity, and while his influence in the Foreign Office grew, his thoughts turned repeatedly to resignation.
Churchill's biographer William Manchester described one of Wigram's memoranda from this period as having "a sagacity and vision seldom matched in Britain's archives".
Wigram did make at least one attempt at direct publicity – at the time of the occupation of the Rhineland in early 1936, he arranged a press conference for French Minister of Foreign Affairs Flandin, but it had little effect.
The position of those who supplied him with data on Britain's defences, or the lack of them, can be explained by the fact that, as a privy councillor and former chancellor of the exchequer, Churchill had the highest level of security clearance and could, therefore, be assumed not to misuse the information passed to him.
Wigram supported it as a means to escape the strictures of disarmament,[citation needed] whereas Churchill felt it condoned German treaty-breaking.
According to Churchill, the British government's failure in March 1936 to pledge any support to France in countering Germany's remilitarization of the Rhineland dealt a mortal blow to Wigram.