Sir Arthur Leary Pigott or Piggott

Sir Arthur Leary Pigott, lawyer and politician, born in Barbados, eldest son of John Piggott (d. 1776) and his wife Jane, attorney-general for Grenada 1780 and then a lawyer and politician in England, among the early purchasers of land in Tobago, as was John Piggott (q.v.).

1. Arthur Leary Pigott was the original purchaser on 05/05/1771 of Barbados Bay division (St George parish) Lots 43 and 44, which became part of Runnemede or Runnymede, and which he still held c. 1773. He was also the original purchaser on 19/04/1768 of Northeast division (St John parish) Lots nos. 21 and 22 which (together with nos. 23 and 24, bought by James Macintosh) were consolidated by 1773 in the hands of Gilbert Petrie and formed the Englishmans Bay estate. By 1773 he was shown as the Present Proprietor not only of Runnemede but of Rockly Bay (St Andrew) Lots no. 9 (originally purchased by John Dumaresq, and which became an Appen[dage] to Carnbee) and nos. 21 and 24 (originally bought by Geo. Glover, and which became the Hampden estate).

2. In 1775 Arthut Piggott of Tobago was recorded as selling an indigo plantation in Rockley Bay of 92 acres and 37 enslaved people to Nathaniel Steward for 5s.

3. He has an entry in the ODNB as lawyer and politician.

1. 'Tables showing the Lots in each Parish, numbered as originally granted - the original Grantee - the name of the Lot, or lots, if one has been acquired, and the present Possessor where there is one' and 'A Table, showing the Estates in cultivation in 1832, and their Owners, in 1832, copied from the list appended to Byres' map of that date, with those in cultivation in 1862', Henry Iles Woodcock, A History of Tobago (Ayr: Smith and Grant, 1867; new impression London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971); John Fowler, A summary account of the present flourishing state of the respectable colony of Tobago in the British West Indies illustrated with a map of the island and a plan of its settlement, agreeably to the sales by his Majesty’s Commissioners (London: A Grant, 1774).

2. Caribbeana Vol. III p. 294.

3. R. A. Melikan, ‘Pigott, Sir Arthur Leary (1749–1819)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 1 Nov 2013.