Audrey Jeffers

Audrey Layne Jeffers CM, OBE (12 February 1898 – 24 June 1968) was a Trinidadian social worker and the first female member of the Legislative Council of Trinidad and Tobago.

Life Born in Woodbrook, Port of Spain, Trinidad, to an upper-middle-class family, Jeffers was educated at Tranquillity Girls School and went to England when she was aged 15, later taking a diploma in social science at Alexander College, north London. While in London she was involved in founding the Union of Students of African Descent, which would become known as the League of Coloured Peoples. After the outbreak of the First World War, she worked among West African troops and set up a West African soldiers' fund, mobilising financial contributions from fellow West Indians.

She returned to Trinidad in 1920 and ran a junior school in her family home, Briarsend.

Legacy The Audrey Jeffers Highway is named in her honour. Her legacy also lives on in The Coterie of Social Workers of Trinidad and Tobago, who continue to honour her memory by celebrations and commemorations.