W. A. (William Ainger) Wigram

Born in 1872, William Ainger Wigram was an English priest and author whose writing grew out of years spent in the Middle East. He became closely associated with the Church of the East and wrote for readers in Britain about the history, beliefs, and daily life of Eastern Christian communities.

His best-known books include The Cradle of Mankind: Life in Eastern Kurdistan, written with Edgar T. A. Wigram, as well as works on the Assyrian Church. What makes his books still interesting is their mix of travel, religion, and eyewitness detail: they do not read like abstract studies, but like accounts shaped by direct contact with places and people.

Wigram died in 1953. Today he is mainly remembered as a guide to the world of the Assyrian Church and Kurdistan in the late Ottoman and early modern period, and as a writer whose work preserves a particular British view of that region at a time of upheaval.