Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to scold, to reprimand.

1854		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Aug. 90/2: Did not the Brigadier find fault with me / And wig me on Parade?
1861		Hills & Plains I 285: No one could wig a magistrate, snub a planter, or silence a missionary more courageously than he.
1875		‘Aliph Cheem’ Lays of Ind (1905) 23: So he wasn’t removed, wigged, or tried for his life.
1888		Echo 26 Mar. n.p.: So alarmed at the prospect of being wigged from home [F&H].
1899		Boy’s Own Paper 30 Sept. 839: We’ve doctored you, wigged you, advised you and trained you.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 483: [He] wigged the Government for its ignorance of what it ought to know.
1961		(con. WWII) X. Herbert Soldiers’ Women (1978) 235: ‘Of course you have to go through the tiresome court proceedings. But there’s really nothing to it. The magistrate will wig you. All you do is look appropriately chastened’.