Jump to content

Anthony Pigott

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Anthony Pigott
Born(1944-12-23)23 December 1944
Rawalpindi, India
Died19 March 2020(2020-03-19) (aged 75)
AllegianceUnited Kingdom United Kingdom
Service / branch British Army
Years of service1965–2003
RankLieutenant General
CommandsStaff College, Camberley
Battles / warsIraq War
AwardsKnight Commander of the Order of the Bath
Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Lieutenant-General Sir Anthony David Pigott, KCB, CBE (23 December 1944 – 19 March 2020)[1] was a British Army officer. He also served as Independent Member of Steering Board at the Intellectual Property Office.

Early life

[edit]

Pigott was the son of Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Pigott RADC and Mollie Pigott, an officer in the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps.[2]

Military career

[edit]

Educated at St George's College, Weybridge, and Trinity College, Cambridge,[2] Pigott was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1965.[3] As a major, he commanded a squadron of 38 Engineer Regiment at Ripon, in which role he was deployed to Belize in 1976 to build a camp from which local soldiers could defend the area against attack from Guatemala.[2] In 1977 he was deployed to Bradford as Chief Fire Officer, West Yorkshire during the Firemen's Strike and then went on to become military assistant to the Vice-Chief of the General Staff.[2] As a brigadier he played a key role in establishing the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps ('ARRC') and then, as a major-general, he became the first Chief of Staff of the ARRC in 1992.[2] He was deployed to Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina when the ARRC took the lead in the United Nations Protection Force.[2]

He became Commandant of the Staff College, Camberley, in 1994 and Director-General, Doctrine and Development in 1997.[4] From 2000 he served as Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments) with responsibility for planning and executing the invasion of Afghanistan.[5] He retired in 2003.[4]

Later life

[edit]

After retiring from the Armed Forces, Pigott took a position of Independent Member of Steering Board at the Intellectual Property Office.[6]

On 4 December 2009, Pigott gave evidence to The Iraq Inquiry.[7] From his evidence, it emerged that he chaired an informal working group in the Ministry of Defence in mid-2002 to explore possibilities for British military involvement in an invasion of Iraq and its possible repercussions. He told the inquiry that his aim was to avoid a poorly planned "off-the-cuff" campaign.[8]

Family

[edit]

In 1981, he married Felicity Ann Astley-Cooper.[9] They had three children including a daughter, Anna, who married Simon Hervé Marie Ghislain, Prince de Merode, son of Léonel Amaury Marie Ghislain, Prince de Merode, in September 2010.[10]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "PIGOTT - Deaths Announcements - Telegraph Announcements". announcements.telegraph.co.uk.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Lieutenant-General Sir Anthony Pigott obituary". The Times. 2 May 2020. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
  3. ^ "No. 43576". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 February 1965. p. 1675.
  4. ^ a b "Army Commands" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 July 2015.
  5. ^ Iraq war inquiry key witnesses: Lieutenant General Sir Anthony Pigott and Major General David Wilson, The Guardian
  6. ^ Sir Anthony Pigott Archived 13 February 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Intellectual Property Office
  7. ^ "'Defining moment' as US revealed Iraq plans". BBC News. BBC. 4 December 2009. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  8. ^ Hopkins, Nick (9 July 2016). "When Blair met Bush: how the UK went to war in Iraq". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  9. ^ "Person Page". thepeerage.com.
  10. ^ "Person Page". thepeerage.com.
Military offices
Preceded by Commandant of the Staff College, Camberley
1994–1996
Succeeded by
College Disbanded
Preceded by Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments)
2000–2003
Succeeded by