Patsy Robertson was a founder member and president of the Friends of the Georgian Society of Jamaica, a small charity dedicated to conserving and promoting awareness of historic structures on the island. It funds work on buildings ranging from the grand to the small and domestic, and supports the training of Jamaican craftspeople in traditional building techniques. This includes the revival of brickmaking, a skill that had died out.
The FGSJ was established in 1994 by Patsy’s friend Pamela Beshoff. They had met while working at the London office of the Federation of the West Indies and shared recollections of childhoods spent in rural parishes in Jamaica.
When the island nation gained its independence from Britain in 1962, they joined the staff of the new Jamaican high commission. After one visit home, Pamela convened a small group that resolved to establish the FGSJ, as Patsy wrote when Pamela died last year, “for the noble task of preserving Jamaica’s history and heritage”.
