James Pigott Pritchett

James Pigott Pritchett was born on 14 May 1830 in York, the son of architect James Pigott Pritchett senior (1789 – 1868) and his second wife Caroline (nee Benson). He was educated at St Peter's School, York, before being articled to his father's practice in 1845. He also travelled in Europe, the Near East and Africa.

In 1854, he succeeded to the architectural practice of his brother-in-law John Middleton in Darlington, in which town he practiced until his retirement. The same year, his father's firm, Pritchett & Sons of York, won a competition to design two chapels, a lodge and entrance gates for the new Boston Cemetery in Lincolnshire, but it was James Pigott Pritchett who received the commission. In the same year, Pritchett was engaged to restore the medieval church of St Nicholas, Durham. When the structure was found to be beyond repair, he was commissioned to design a new church which opened in 1858 and was described by the Illustrated London News as "the most beautiful specimen of church architecture in the north of England."  He went on to design over 100 more churches and around 20 other cemeteries including the chapels and lodge at Darlington West Cemetery.

His son, Herbert Dewes Pritchett (born 1859) joined him in practice in 1880, and became a partner in 1900.

He was a member of the Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, a founding member of the Northern Architectural Association, and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

J. P. Pritchett retired around 1910, and died in 1911 at “Glendower,” Teddington, London, the home of one of his married daughters. He was buried in Darlington West Cemetery, for which he designed the buildings over fifty years before.