{{Short description|British publisher of directories (1769 – 1843)}} {{about||the Irish cricketer|James Pigot (cricketer)}}
'''James Pigot''' (1769 – 15 Feb 1843) was a British publisher of directories, and a pioneering publisher of trade directories.
He was born in Macclesfield. In 1811 he began publishing trade directories for Manchester, competing with the firm of R. & W. Dean but later joining with them in 1815 to produce ''Pigot & Dean's Manchester and Salford Directory''.<ref name="pollard"/>
He began publishing ''The Commercial Directory'' in 1814, and expanded to other cities, including London in 1823. He brought his son into his firm Pigot & Co., but his son died in 1840. He made his apprentice Isaac Slater a partner into the firm, which became Pigot & Slater.<ref name="pollard"/>
The titles of the directories varied from ''New Commercial Directory'' or ''National Commercial Directory'', and finally ''Royal National and Commercial Directory and Topography''.
His company stopped producing directories for London and the Home Counties after 1840 in the face of fierce competition from the firm of Kelly & Co. Pigot died in 1843, and Slater continued publishing directories on his own (after 1852 only for northern England, Scotland, and Ireland). After Slater's own death in 1883, the company was bought by Kelly & Co. in 1892.<ref name="pollard"/>
Pigot is buried in St. John's Church, Deansgate, Manchester (without an epitaph).<ref name="procter"/>
==See also== * ''Pigot's Directory''
==References== {{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="procter">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aOIHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PR19|title=Memorials of bygone Manchester: with glimpses of the environs|author=Richard Wright Procter|author-link=Richard Wright Procter|location=Manchester|publisher=Palmer and Howe|year=1880}}</ref>
<ref name="pollard">{{cite book | title=The Earliest Directory of the Book Trade | first=John | last=Pendred | editor-first=Graham | editor-last=Pollard | chapter=Appendix H: General Directories | pages=76–77, 84 | isbn=0-19-721759-1 | year=1955 | edition=reprint of 1785}}</ref>
}}
==Further reading== * {{Citation |location = London |author = J. Pigot & Co. |url =https://books.google.com/books?id=RwgHAAAAQAAJ |title = Pigot and Co.'s Pocket Atlas, Topography and Gazetteer of England |date = 1838 }}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pigot, James}} Category:1769 births Category:1843 deaths Category:British businesspeople Category:People from Macclesfield