George Bettesworth Piggott

Sir George Bettesworth Piggott KBE (30 April 1867 – 14 March 1952)[1] was a British judge who served in various positions under the British Empire.

Sir

George Bettesworth Piggott
Chief Justice of Zanzibar
In office
August 1901 – 1904
MonarchEdward VII
Preceded byWalter Borthwick Cracknall
Succeeded byLindsey Smith
Assistant Judge for the Sublime Ottoman Porte
In office
1904–1911
Personal details
Born(1867-04-30)30 April 1867
Died14 March 1952(1952-03-14) (aged 84)
Monte Carlo, Monaco
NationalityBritish
Political partyMunicipal Reform Party
EducationMiddle Temple
OccupationJudge

Early life

Piggott was the son of Fraser Piggott, a justice of the peace.[2] His family had occupied Fitzhall in West Sussex since the 1400s.[3]

He was educated at the Westminster School.[1]

Law career

Piggott trained as a judge at the Middle Temple in June 1888,[4] and practiced law in London and the South-East.[1] Following this, he served as a judicial officer in the British Central Africa Protectorate in 1896.[1][5]:159

From June 1900, he served as Acting Assistant Judge in Zanzibar.[6] In August 1901, he was appointed Chief Justice of Zanzibar.[7] While there, he helped implement "a deeply-entrenched legal bureaucracy" and the implementation of British imperial law.[5]:167

In 1904, he became Assistant Judge for the Sublime Ottoman Porte in Constantinople.[1][5]:167 He retired from the position in 1911 and returned to Africa, sitting in the East African Court of Appeal and as a judge for the Sultanate of Zanzibar.[1]

Political career

In 1913, he unsuccessfully contested Battersea in the London County Council election (LCC) as a member of the Municipal Reform Party. However, he sat on the LCC from 1917 to 1919 for Mile End, and then for Clapham until 1922.[1] At the time of his retirement from the LCC, he was chairman of the Public Control Committee.[8][9]

Personal life

On 12 July 1904, Piggott married Amy Spiller, a granddaughter of ironmaster Robert Thompson Crawshay.[2] She died on 14 April 1909 in Helwan, Egypt.[10]

In 1915, he married Nadine Beauchamp, daughter of Reginald William Proctor-Beauchamp.[11] In 1927, he married Winifred Lathbury.[12]

Throughout the build-up and length of World War II, Piggott and his third wife travelled around Canada and the United States: he had stated that "in [his] opinion" there would be no war.[13] During this time, they enjoyed the company of various socialites, entertaining guests at hotels at Palm Beach, Florida,[14][15] and holidaying in Alberta's Rockies.[16] They attended parties with Archduke Franz Josef of Austria and his wife.[17]

He died on 14 March 1952 in Monte Carlo.[1]

Honours
  • Commander of the British Empire (CBE) – 1918[18]
  • Knight of the British Empire (KBE) – 1919[1]

References
  1. "Obituary". The Times. 18 March 1952. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  2. "Marriages". The Times. 14 July 1904. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  3. "Silk and Stuff". The Pall Mall Gazette. 13 August 1896. p. 1. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  4. "Pall Mall Gazette Office". The Pall Mall Gazette. 29 June 1900. p. 8. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  5. Bishara, Fahad Ahmad (2017). A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780–1950. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-32637-7. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  6. "Pall Mall Gazette Office". The Pall Mall Gazette. 28 June 1900. p. 5. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  7. "Foreign Office, August 14, 1901". The London Gazette. 6 September 1901. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  8. "Sir G. B. Piggott Retiring from L.C.C." The Times. 4 February 1922. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  9. "Traps Set for Tricksters". The Victoria Daily Times. 21 April 1922. p. 15. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  10. "Deaths". The Times. 26 April 1909. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  11. "Forthcoming Marriages". The Times. 30 August 1915. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  12. "Forthcoming Marriages". The Times. 26 November 1927. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
  13. "Europeans Come to Victoria to Avoid War Conditions". The Province. 29 July 1939. p. 11. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  14. "Palm Beach Notes". The Palm Beach Post. 2 February 1941. p. 12. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  15. "Night and Day - Socialites Still Whirling". The Miami Herald. 30 March 1941. p. 58. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  16. "Jurist Impressed with Tidiness of Ottawa Citizens". The Ottawa Citizen. 19 June 1939. p. 3. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  17. "Palm Beach Notes". The Palm Beach Post. 28 January 1942. p. 7. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  18. "Third Supplement to The London Gazette". The London Gazette. 4 January 1918. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
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