Max Pigott grew up in Melbourne and enlisted in the army at the outbreak of World War II, serving in New Guinea. After the war, Piggott studied horticulture at Burnley Horticultural College and played briefly for South Melbourne in the Victorian Football League (VFL).
Deciding he could not make a career out of football, Piggott took up farming on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, gaining a Nuffield Foundation Scholarship in 1955 to study drainage and soil water movement in the United Kingdom. In 1967, Piggott moved with his family to Western Australia and continued farming. He became a reporter with the Western Farmer and Grazier (later the Farm Weekly) from 1974 and was killed in a road accident while on his way to cover a field day north of Albany, Western Australia, for the newspaper.
