James Hensman was born and educated in Sri Lanka, before travelling to Australia, c1950, to study architecture at the University of Melbourne c1950. He graduated in 1952 and appears to have returned to Sri Lanka, living in Colombo, before coming to the UK in September 1957 and joining the Architectural Association’s six-month, post-graduate Department of Tropical Architecture course. He is then recorded as returning to Colombo in April 1958 to the position of Assistant Architect within the Building Division of the Public Works Department. However, by 1965 he had relocated and was working in Accra, for the Ghanian Division of Public Construction. Four years later he appears to have moved posts again, employed by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, in Lagos, Nigeria - a position he was to hold until at least the mid-1970s. Subsequently he settled in the UK, where died in 1989.

Sources

• Architectural Association Student Register 1945-1972, AA Archives
• Architectural Association Council Minutes Books, 24th February, 1958, p237. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Membership Register, 1958, 1961
• The National Archives, London, England, UK; Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Inwards Passenger Lists; Class: Bt26; Piece: 1389; Item: 124
• National Archives of Australia; Queen Victoria Terrace, Parkes ACT 2600.; Inward passenger manifests for ships and aircraft arriving at Fremantle, Perth Airport and Western Australian outports from 1897-1963; Series Number: K 269; Reel Number: 101
• London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; Electoral Registers; Reference: GLC/PER/B/3511
• Shepparton Advertiser (Victoria), 31st January, 1950, p.6
• The Argus (Melbourne, Victoria), 18th May, 1951, p.7
• Ferguson’s Ceylon Directory, 1959, The Ceylon Observer Press, 1959, p.237