Green’s Dictionary of Slang

gigger n.2

[gig-lamps n. (1); the locus classicus was its use as a schoolboy nickname for the bespectacled Rudyard Kipling and, as such, used for his fictional alter ego, ‘Beetle’ in Stalky & Co (1899)]

one who wears spectacles.

Show quotations
[UK] (ref. to 1878–82) Inverness Courier 10 Apr. 3/6: Kip[ling’s nickname at school [...] was ‘Gig-lamps,’ which was sometimes shortened to ‘Gigger’.
(ref. to 1878–82) G.C. Beresford Schooldays with Kipling 202: Anything that Gigger [i.e. Kipling] did ‘went’.
(ref. to 1878–82) A. Lycett Rudyard Kipling 57: His most obvious feature was his spectacles [...] This gave rise to one of his nicknames, Gigger (or Gigs, short for Gig-lamps).