Read Next
John Henry Wigmore
American legal scholar
Quick Facts
- Born:
- March 4, 1863, San Francisco, California, U.S.
- Subjects Of Study:
- jurisprudence
- American law
- evidence
John Henry Wigmore (born March 4, 1863, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died April 20, 1943, Chicago, Illinois) was an American legal scholar and teacher whose 10-volume Treatise on the Anglo-American System of Evidence in Trials at Common Law (1904–05), usually called Wigmore on Evidence, is generally regarded as one of the world’s great books on law.
A graduate of Harvard University, Wigmore taught at Keio University in Tokyo (1889–92) and at Northwestern University Law School in Evanston, Illinois (from 1893; dean, 1901–29). He also served as a colonel on the judge advocate general’s staff during World War I and as an Illinois commissioner on uniform state laws (1908–24, 1933–43).