Sweet Briar House, Woodbrook

Description

This site on 22 Sweet Briar Road was built in 1908 by Henry Jeffers (at the time an established lawyer and three term member of the Port of Spain City Council) and was the Jeffers family home. His daughter Audrey Jeffers (born 1898) was the first Afro-Trinidadian woman to be elected as part of the Port of Spain City Council. She obtained her diploma in Social Sciences at Alexander College, North London and founded the Union of Students of African Descent (later became the League of Coloured Students). After returning to Trinidad in 1920 from London, she used her family home to start a Junior School. A year later, she established the Coterie of Social Workers of Trinidad and Tobago – an organization that started off giving free lunches to underprivileged children, and went on to building homes for the blind, elderly and homeless. Text provided by the National Trust of Trinidad and Tobago: https://nationaltrust.tt/location/audrey-jeffers-house/