Elizabeth Springer Wrigley; Authority on Francis Bacon

Elizabeth Springer Wrigley, 81, former director of the Francis Bacon Library in Claremont. An authority on Bacon, Wrigley also served as president of the Francis Bacon Foundation, which was set up by art collectors Walter Conrad Arensberg and Louise Stevens Arensberg in 1938. The Arensbergs had the largest and one of the best collections on Bacon, an English lawyer, philosopher and statesman who died in 1626. Wrigley, a native of Pittsburgh who was educated at the University of Pittsburgh, became librarian of the Arensberg collection and moved it to Claremont in 1960. Two years ago, the more than 6,500-volume collection was given to the Huntington Library in San Marino. Over the years, Wrigley became an oft-consulted expert on whether Bacon had written literature attributed to William Shakespeare. No, she concluded, Bacon did not write the Shakespeare manuscripts because he would never have had the time. She did occasionally espouse the idea that the supposed Shakespeare plays and other material were written by various people and edited by Bacon. She once described herself for The Times as “a mad Baconian,” but later modified that to “dreadfully pro-Bacon.” On April 26 in Temple City.