Robert Pigott (c.1736 – 7 July 1794) was an English food and dress reformer. He was a radical in politics and manners. He sold his estates in England in 1776, and moved to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

where he supported the French Revolution, promoted

vegetarianism Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetarianism may ...

and made pronouncements on dress.

Biography

Pigott was born at Chetwynd Park, Shropshire, and baptised on 24 March 1738/39 at Shrewsbury St Julian's, Shropshire.Robert Piggott (sic) in the Shropshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812
Accessed via ancestry.com subscription site 28 April 2024. He was the son of Robert Pigott and his wife Anne Peers, and the grandson of Robert Pigott MP. He was High Sheriff of Shropshire in 1774. In 1776, he imagined that the American Revolutionary War betokened the ruin of England, and sold his Chetwynd and Chesterton estates, worth £9,000 a year. He retired to the continent, where he became acquainted with Voltaire, Franklin, and

Brissot Jacques Pierre Brissot (, 15 January 1754 – 31 October 1793), who assumed the name of de Warville (an English version of "d'Ouarville", a hamlet in the village of Lèves where his father owned property), was a leading member of the Girondins du ...

. He lived mostly in Geneva, but occasionally visited England. He became a zealous Pythagorean, as a vegetarian was then called, and was a follower of the quack James Graham (1745–1794) and his electric bed. Pigott was enraptured by the French Revolution, especially in its more extravagant aspects. He protested against Sieyès's press bill, and published his protest, which he had read to the revolutionary club at Lyon. In an appendix to this he advocated a vegetarian diet for prisoners as being calculated to reclaim them. At Dijon in 1791 he condemned the use of bread, recommending potatoes, lentils, maize, barley, and rice. In the spring of the following year he protested against hats, arguing that they had been introduced by priests and despots, and that they concealed the face and were gloomy and monotonous, whereas caps left the countenance its natural dignity, and were susceptible of various shapes and colours. For some weeks the cap movement was very popular in Paris, but the remonstrance addressed by Pétion to the

Jacobin club , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = Pa ...

put an end to it. The ''bonnet rouge'' introduced later had no connection with Pigott. He considered buying and occupying a confiscated estate in the south of France, but Madame Roland, who had doubtless met him at Lyon and was amused at his oddities and fickleness, predicted that he would only build castles in the air. In 1792 he probably settled at Toulouse. He died there on 7 July 1794, leaving a widow, Antoinette Boutan.

References

Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Pigott, Robert 1736 births 1794 deaths English vegetarianism activists