Anthony Pigott

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

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

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

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

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

  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