Thomas Pigott (Queen's County MP)
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Thomas Pigott (c. 1614–1674) was an Anglo-Irish landowner and Cavalier who was MP for Queen's County in the 1661 Irish House of Commons.[1]
Pigott's great-grandfather had gained the estate of Dysart in Queen's County (now County Laois) in 1562, under the Settlement of Laois and Offaly Act 1556.[2] His father, Major John Pigott, bought the manor of Brockley, Somerset, including Long Ashton,[2] where Thomas Pigott grew up.[3] Thomas' mother Martha was of the Colcloughs of Tintern Abbey, County Wexford.[1] John Pigott, MP for Queen's County in 1634, was killed in 1646 during the Confederate Wars.[2][1]
Thomas Pigott was master of the court of wards in Ireland and a member of the Irish Privy Council.[2] He was a colonel in the Cavalier army.[3] In 1648 he married Florence Poulett, widow of his Somerset neighbour, Thomas Smith.[3][2] His heir John Pigott was elected for MP for Somerset in the 1705 election.[2] After the Stuart Restoration Pigott signed a petition successfully requesting that John Harrington not be punished for having sat in the Protectorate Parliament.[3]
There is a portrait of Thomas Pigott by John Hayls in the Weston Museum in Weston-super-Mare.[4]