"condition or office of a conservator," 1640s, from conservator + -ship.
Entries linking to conservatorship
conservator n.
c. 1400, "an official entrusted with the power and the duty to protect the interests or rights of someone else or some thing," from Anglo-French conservatour, from Latin conservator "keeper, preserver, defender," agent noun of conservare "to keep, preserve, keep intact, guard," from assimilated form of com-, here perhaps an intensive prefix (see com-), + servare "keep watch, maintain" (from PIE root *ser- (1) "to protect").
General sense of "a preserver" (from injury, violation, etc.) is from mid-15c. Fem. form conservatrice was used mid-15c. in reference to the Virgin.
-ship
word-forming element meaning "quality, condition; act, power, skill; office, position; relation between," Middle English -schipe, from Old English -sciepe, Anglian -scip "state, condition of being," from Proto-Germanic *-skepi- (cognates: Old Norse -skapr, Danish -skab, Old Frisian -skip, Dutch -schap, German -schaft), from *skap- "to create, ordain, appoint," from PIE root *(s)kep-, forming words meaning "to cut, scrape, hack" (see shape (v.)). It often forms abstracts to go with corresponding concretes (friend/friendship, etc.).