Maggie Keswick Jencks


Margaret Keswick Jencks was a Scottish writer, artist and garden designer who co-founded Maggie's Centres with her husband Charles Jencks.

Early life

Margaret Keswick was born at Cowhill Tower near Holywood in the county of Dumfriesshire in Scotland the only child of Sir John Keswick and Clare Elwes. Maggie's father was taipan of Jardine Matheson, the influential Scottish–Chinese trading company. The family spent time in Hong Kong and Shanghai as well as the UK. Keswick was educated in England and read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. After working in fashion, she studied at the Architectural Association in London and in 1978 she published The Chinese Garden: History, Art and Architecture.

Career and legacy

In 1978, she married as his second wife, Charles Jencks, writer and landscape artist, with whom she founded the first Maggie's Centres in Edinburgh, which opened in 1996.
A bust of Jencks is on display in the Hall of Heroes of the National Wallace Monument in Stirling.

Publications

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