He invested in BHP shares, which made him quite wealthy, and was able to take an extensive tour of Europe with his wife where they purchased, among other works, the painting A Sea-Spell by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
[1] The painting hung in the Art Gallery of South Australia in April and May 1899, along with 14 others of his recent purchases: a flower study by Henri Fantin-Latour and three landscapes by Frank Walton, then was in Mrs Wigley's South Yarra residence for some years before being exhibited in the McArthur Gallery of the State Library of Victoria.
In his obituaries Wigley is credited with doing the bankrupt South Australian Jockey Club a valuable service when the Morphettville Racecourse was put up at auction by order of the mortgagee.
In 1888 Parliament reversed its ban on the Totalizator, and it was only then that Wigley, Browne and (briefly) R. B. Pell stumped up with the £8,000 purchase price.
[7] and a well-attended meeting was held on 19 September 1888, presided by Sir Richard Baker,[7] and a committee elected to re-form the Club.