Maggie Keswick; Wrote ‘The Chinese Garden’

Maggie Keswick, 53, offspring of the Scottish China trading family Jardine Matheson and author of “The Chinese Garden.” Born in Cowhill, Scotland, and educated at Oxford University, she grew up in post-revolutionary China, where she studied and photographed gardens. Her popular work tracing the history, art and architecture of the Chinese gardens and the philosophy and literature behind them was published in 1978, republished in paperback in 1986 and remains in print. In 1982, she edited a history of Jardine Matheson titled “The Thistle and the Jade” on the company’s 150th anniversary. Also a garden designer, she was married to Charles Alexander Jencks, an architect and professor at UCLA. They lived part of each year in Santa Monica and divided the remaining time between homes in London and Wellfleet, Mass. As chairwoman of the Hong Kong-based Keswick Foundation, Mrs. Keswick established cancer care hospices and care centers in Hong Kong, China and Edinburgh. On July 8 in London of breast cancer.