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Joseph M. Pigott was a prominent Canadian businessman, who jointly ran Pigott Construction Company, responsible for some of Canada's largest industrial plants and finest buildings.
He was born in Hamilton, Ontario on February 23, 1885, the son of a prominent Irish contractor (Michael Pigott, himself the founder of Pigott Construction Co. and the son of an Irish farmer who emigrated to Canada and settled near Guelph).
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. An industrialized city in the Golden Horseshoe at the west end of Lake Ontario, Hamilton has a population of 536,917, and a metropolitan population of 747,545. The city is located about 60 km southwest of Toronto, with which the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) is formed.
In 1903 he began working for his father's construction company. In 1909 Pigott travelled to Saskatchewan with his younger brother Roy where they secured a large contract to build St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon.
Saskatchewan is a prairie and boreal province in western Canada, the only province without a natural border. It has an area of 651,900 square kilometres (251,700 sq mi), nearly 10 percent of which is fresh water, composed mostly of rivers, reservoirs, and the province's 100,000 lakes.
Saskatoon is the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It straddles a bend in the South Saskatchewan River in the central region of the province. It is located along the Trans-Canada Yellowhead Highway, and has served as the cultural and economic hub of central Saskatchewan since it was founded in 1882 as a Temperance colony.
While in the West, Pigott met and married Yvonne Prince, daughter of the Honorable Joseph Benjamin Prince of Battlefield, Saskatchewan. They had 6 sons: William, Jean-Jacques, Joseph, Patrick, Ronald and Paul.
Joseph Benjamin Prince was a farmer, rancher and political figure in Saskatchewan, Canada. He represented Battleford in the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories from 1898 to 1905 as an Independent. Prince sat as a Liberal for Saskatchewan division in the Senate of Canada from 1909 to 1920 following his appointment by Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
Together the brothers would direct Pigott Construction to fortune and fame. Roy looked after the engineering and Joseph took care of the business administration. The first $1,000,000 year came in 1926, and in 1930, Hamilton's earliest skyscraper, the 18-storey Pigott Building, was completed.
The Pigott Building is an 18-storey condominium building located at 36 James Street South in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. This Art Deco/Gothic Revival style building was designed by Hamilton architects Bernard and Fred Prack and is designated under the Ontario Heritage Act.
After the Second World War, Pigott Construction was Canada's largest privately owned construction company, amassing more than $113,000,000 in business in a single year.
Pigott built some of Canada's largest industrial plants and finest buildings: the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; Crown Life Insurance Company head office, Toronto; Bank of Canada, Ottawa; a plant for General Motors, Oshawa, and buildings for A. V. Roe Company in Malton. In Hamilton, buildings built by his firm included: the Canadian Westinghouse offices, Banks of Nova Scotia, Royal and Montreal, McMaster University, the County Court House, Westdale Secondary School, St. Joseph's Hospital, the Pigott Building, the new City Hall and the Cathedral of Christ the King.
The Royal Ontario Museum is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year, making the ROM the most-visited in Canada. The museum is north of Queen's Park, in the University of Toronto district, with its main entrance on Bloor Street West. The Museum subway station of the Toronto Transit Commission is named after the ROM and, since a 2008 renovation, is decorated to resemble the institution's collection.
The Bank of Canada is a Crown corporation and Canada's central bank. Chartered in 1934 under the Bank of Canada Act, it is responsible for formulating Canada's monetary policy, and for the promotion of a safe, sound financial system within Canada. The Bank of Canada is the sole issuing authority of Canadian banknotes, provides banking services and money management for the government, and loans money to Canadian financial institutions.
Oshawa is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It lies in Southern Ontario, approximately 60 kilometres east of Downtown Toronto. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of the Greater Toronto Area and of the Golden Horseshoe. It is the largest municipality in the Regional Municipality of Durham. The name Oshawa originates from the Ojibwa term aaz haway, meaning "the crossing place" or just "(a)cross".
Pigott was honoured for many of his accomplishments:
Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great and later "Con Placa" - in recognition of the Cathedral, by Pope Pius XI.
Pope Pius XI, born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was head of the Catholic Church from 6 February 1922 to his death in 1939. He was the first sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929. He took as his papal motto, "Pax Christi in Regno Christi," translated "The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ."
Commander of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (in 1946), in recognition of his services to the Government of Canada during the war, particularly as president of the Wartime Housing Ltd.
Knight of magistral grace of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (in 1953) and awarded the honorary degree of LL.D by McMaster University (1962) in consideration of his contributions to social welfare and to the political and intellectual life of Christian society.
He was a former president of the Canadian Construction Association, Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, a former vice-president and director of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, president of Pigott Realty Ltd., vice-president and director of North American Life Assurance Company, director of Canada Permanent Trust Company, Atlas Steels Ltd., and United Fuel Investments Ltd. Pigott was also a former president of the board of governors of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, a director of the Ontario Heart Foundation, chairman of the advisory committee of St. Joseph's Hospital, a member of the Hamilton Club, the Hamilton Golf and Country Club and the National Club of Toronto. Pigott played an enormous role in the development of Hamilton. He died in Hamilton on 20 April 1969.
Francis Joseph Aloysius "Frank" Selke was a Canadian hockey manager in the National Hockey League. He was a nine-time Stanley Cup champion with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens and a Hockey Hall of Fame inductee.
Redpath Sugar Limited is a Canadian sugar refining company founded in 1854. Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario - with an additional packaging plant in Belleville, Ontario - Redpath Sugar is a subsidiary of the multinational American Sugar Refining.
The Scarborough Town Centre (STC) is a shopping mall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Central to the Scarborough City Centre in the former city of Scarborough, it is adjacent to the Scarborough Centre station and Scarborough Centre Bus Terminal. It was constructed by Oxford Properties and opened in 1973 to become the sixth largest shopping mall in Canada, fourth largest in Ontario and third in Toronto by retail space.
Harold Elford Johns, OC was a Canadian medical physicist, noted for his extensive contributions to the use of ionizing radiation to treat cancer.
Lawrence M. Tanenbaum is a Canadian businessman and chairman of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE). He owns a 25% stake in MLSE through his holding company Kilmer Sports Inc.
Eva Lee Kwok is a Malaysian-born Canadian business executive and investor. She is currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She spent her early life in Penang, where she attended St. George's Girls' School.
This article is about the Economy of Hamilton, Ontario.
Mike Morreale is a former award-winning receiver in the Canadian Football League.
Below is a timeline of events in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
This article describes the Economic History of Hamilton, Ontario.
James Street is a Lower City arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It starts off at the base of the Niagara Escarpment from James Mountain Road, a mountain-access road in the city, originally was a one-way street going south throughout but now has sections of it that are two-way. It extends north to the city's waterfront at the North End where it ends at Guise Street West right in front of the Harbour West Marina Complex and the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club.
Victoria Avenue is a Lower City arterial road in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It starts off as a ramp and part of a Mountain-access road, the Claremont Access, on Hunter Street East in the Stinson neighbourhood. It's also a one-way thoroughfare that flows north through the Landsdale and the city's North End industrial neighbourhood past Burlington Street East where it ends at Pier 11.
John A. Pollock, b. 1936, is a businessman and philanthropist, who was the president of his family's company, Electrohome, from 1972 to 2008. He also was the seventh chancellor of Wilfrid Laurier University, and held this position from March 31, 2008 to October 28, 2011.
John Paris Bickell, also known as Jack Bickell, was a Canadian businessman, philanthropist, and sports team owner. He is best known for his long-time association with the Toronto Maple Leafs professional ice hockey team as the owner, president, chairman and director 1924-1951.
St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton is a 777-bed academic and research hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada that is affiliated with the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine of McMaster University as well as Mohawk College. It is part of the St. Joseph's Health System and serves as the regional kidney transplant centre for a population of approximately 1.2 million people.
EllisDon is an employee-owned construction services company that was founded and incorporated in 1951 in London, Ontario, Canada by brothers Don and David Ellis Smith. The company is headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
Jean Yvon (Ivan) Gouin was a Canadian businessman and investor. He was the founder of North American Road Ltd., which grew to be one of the largest mining, heavy construction, industrial, piling and pipeline firms in Canada.
Arthur Raymond Lundrigan, OC, LL.D., D.Eng. was a Canadian businessman based in Newfoundland and Labrador, involved in the development and construction of such projects as the Bay d'Espoir Hydroelectric Power Station, the Churchill Falls Generating Station, and the Come By Chance Refinery.
William Lyon Somerville was a Canadian architect practicing in Toronto, Ontario and Southern Ontario, Canada. He was President of the Ontario Association of Architects, and president of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. He was an accomplished architect who designed hospitals, commercial and institutional buildings, residential buildings. Somerville designed the original McMaster University buildings in Hamilton, Ontario and the Rainbow Tower complex in Niagara Falls. He also designed several monuments, including the Clifton Gate Pioneer Memorial Arch in Niagara Falls and the Henley Bridge and Queen Elizabeth Way Monument for the new Queen Elizabeth Way superhighway built in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Sources of this information include content from the Hamilton Hall of Fame Inductees as well as information coming from the University of McMaster archives (whose reflections come from the donation of Joseph M. Pigotts daily journals donated to the University in 2000).