Joseph Warwick Bigger (11 September 1891 – 17 August 1951) was an Irish politician and academic. He was an

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

member of

Seanad Éireann Seanad Éireann (, ; "Senate of Ireland") is the upper house of the Oireachtas (the Irish legislature), which also comprises the President of Ireland and Dáil Éireann (the lower house). It is commonly called the Seanad or Senate and its memb ...

from 1947 to 1951. Bigger was born on 11 September 1891 in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

, Ireland to Sir Edward Coey Bigger who was a Senator from 1925 to 1936 and to Maude Coulter Warwick. In 1900, his family moved to Dublin due to appointment of his father as medical inspector under the Local Government Board of Ireland. He attended

Presbyterian College Presbyterian College (PC) is a private Presbyterian liberal arts college in Clinton, South Carolina. History Presbyterian College was founded in 1880 by the William Plumer Jacobs. He had served as the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Cl ...

in North Carolina and later,

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

. Soon after his graduation from the Trinity College, he was appointed as a demonstrator in pathology and bacteriology at

Sheffield University , mottoeng = To discover the causes of things , established = – University of SheffieldPredecessor institutions: – Sheffield Medical School – Firth College – Sheffield Technical School – University College of Sheffield , type = Pu ...

in South Yorkshire, England. However, in 1919 he returned to Dublin and became pathologist and medical inspector under the Local Government Board and the professor of forensic and preventive medicine at the

Royal College of Surgeons The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations a ...

in 1920. He served as the professor of preventive medicine and bacteriology at Trinity College from 1924 to 1950. In 1936, Bigger was appointed dean of the medical school at Trinity College where he served until 1939. In 1950 he was elected an honorary fellow of

. He was first elected to the Seanad at a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

on 22 November 1947 by the Dublin University constituency. The vacancy was caused by the appointment of T. C. Kingsmill Moore as a judge of the High Court. He was re-elected at the 1948 election. He did not contest the 1951 election. He is credited with being the first to report the phenomenon of bacterial antibiotic persistence. He married Patricia Mai Curtin in 1916 and they had one son and one daughter. Bigger died on 17 August 1951.

Bibliography

*1935 – ''Handbook of bacteriology for students and practitioners of medicine'' *1941 – ''Man Against Microbe ''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bigger, Joseph Warwick 1891 births 1951 deaths Academics of Trinity College Dublin Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Honorary Fellows of Trinity College Dublin Independent members of Seanad Éireann Members of the 5th Seanad Members of the 6th Seanad Members of Seanad Éireann for Dublin University Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland