Jessie Pigott

(Emily) Jessie Kemp, later Emily Pigott (8 August 1851 – 9 July 1900), was a British missionary to India and China. She was executed with her son and husband and over 40 others in the Taiyuan massacre.

Life Pigott was born in Tavistock Square in 1851 to a well off Baptist family based in Rochdale. Her mother was Emily Lydia Kemp, (born Kelsall) and her father George Tawke Kemp JP, was a magistrate and flannel manufacturer. Her father had married well and he had become a partner in Kelsall and Kemp.

Her whole family were interested in the work of missionaries so it was expected when she might volunteer to serve in India and her father escorted her to Egypt so she could serve with the Baptist Missionary Society in Allahabad and Delhi. She was returned on medical grounds and her doctors forbade her return. The Sheo Yang Mission. Her husband was assaulted and they were given furlough May 1885 to March 1888 in Britain. During this time back in the UK she took the opportunity to learn more about eye operations and she gave birth to their only child, William Wellesley Pigott, on 4 August 1887.