Kingsley Oliver Robotham was born in Jamaica in 1942 and attended Wolmer's Boys' School, in Kingston, from 1954-60. After graduating he worked for a period with the Ministry of Government Works, in Kingston, before winning a scholarship to attend the Architectural Association (AA), in London, where he joined the five-year Diploma course in September 1962. Robotham, and his fellow countryman, Neil O. Richards, were jointly the first Jamaican students to attend the AA, funded by government scholarships from the newly independent nation. As part of his AA Fifth-Year, in 1966-67, Robotham elected to study within the AA Department of Development and Tropical Studies and correspondingly graduated with both an AA Diploma and a Certificate in Tropical Studies. He was then to return to Jamaica in 1967, working for the Town Planning Department, then in 1969 became an Associate Partner with the firm ‘Caribbean Planning’. He was invited in 1974, by the Ministry of Housing, to assist in setting up the ‘Sites and Services Project’, a World Bank funded project, for which he was eventually made Project Director. Due his success in establishing the programme, the World Bank asked Robotham to work for them in Nairobi to assist in establishing a similar project there. After a brief period at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gaining a Masters degree in City Planning, he was appointed as Chairman of the National Housing Corporation Board in 1976. In this role he instigated a radical re-organisation, enforcing an overhaul of processes and specialisms and making a number of radical changes, including the establishment of a systems department to enable more efficient functioning. The aim of the restructuring being to develop the National Housing Corporation’s in-house capacity, rather than spending on external consultants. In the 1980s he moved another high-profile position, being sworn in as a Senator in April 1980, sitting as the Minister of State, in the Ministry of Finance and Planning. Since the 1990s, he has been working with the World Bank in a number of roles, including as a Senior Urban Planner for the Middle East Region, based in Jerusalem (1993), then as Task Manager within the World Bank’s West Bank and Gaza Resident Mission (1998).
Sources
- Architectural Association Student Register, 1945-71. AA Archives
- Architectural Association Diploma Roll, 1966-67. AA Archives.
- Architectural Association Student Records, 1960s, Registrar’s Office. AA Archives.
- ‘Robotham sworn in as Senator,’ The Daily Gleaner (Kingston), April 17th, 1980, p5
- ‘News release about him untrue, says Senator Robotham,’ The Daily Gleaner (Kingston), May 12th, 1980, p13
- Robotham, K. ‘Housing Need and Housing Finance in Jamaica, 1975-1985,’ MIT thesis, 1976.
