Francis Pigott (composer)

Francis Pigott ( 1665 – 15 May 1704) was an English Baroque composer and organist. Career He was a choirboy at the Chapel Royal in London from at least August 1678 to Michaelmas 1683. A record at St John’s College, Oxford shows a “Mr Pygott, the organist at St John’s” and although there is no other evidence that he was employed there, he may have replaced Bartholemew Isaack who left the college for Dublin in late 1684. Pigott was appointed organist at Magdalen College, Oxford in January 1686 and returned to London to play the Father Smith organ at the Temple Church in 1688. On the death of Henry Purcell in 1695, Pigott received an “extraordinary” appointment as organist at the Chapel Royal, and was finally sworn in as the First Organist on 24 March 1697, after the death of William Child. Works Pigott has been tentatively identified as the manuscript copyist known as “London A” by his handwriting and by his known association with Henry Purcell and other notable composers of the time. Pigott also collaborated with John Blow, William Croft and Jeremiah Clarke in the production of A Choice Collection of Ayres for the Harpsicorde (London, 1700). Pigott’s setting of the anthem, I was gla