Sybil Neville-Rolfe
| Sybil Katherine Neville-Rolfe | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Sybil Katherine Burney 22 June 1885 Greenwich, London |
| Died | 3 August 1955 (aged 70) London |
| Other names | Sybil Katherine Gotto |
| Occupation | Social hygienist |
| Relatives |
Cecil Burney (father) Dennistoun Burney (brother) |
Cecil Burney (father)
Sybil Neville-Rolfe, OBE (22 June 1885 – 3 August 1955) was a social hygienist and founder of the Eugenics Society, and a leading figure in the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease. She has been described as a feminist eugenicist.
She and Francis Galton founded the Eugenics Education Society (now known as the Galton Institute) in London in 1907, with Galton serving as its first honorary president. She took the role of honorary secretary upon the Society's founding until 1920. The Eugenics Education Society believed that social class and poverty were directly linked to one's genetics. Therefore, the Society aimed to reduce poverty in England through reducing the birth rate of the lowest classes and those of low intelligence. In 1912, she was the driving force behind the Society's organisation of the first International Eugenics Congress in South Kensington. After 1920 she acted as the Society Council's vice-president and later was elected to serve on the consultative council, a position that she held until her death in 1955.
Neville-Rolfe was one of the establishing members of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and her Child (now known as Gingerbread) in 1918, where she worked on reforming poor-law institutions and hostels for unmarried mothers and their children. She was also a leading figure in the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease (NCCVD) which was founded in 1914. Upon the NCCVD's founding she held the position of Honorary Secretary. Later in the NCCVD's life she held the position of secretary-general. The NCCVD changed its name to the British Social Hygiene Council in 1926, and Neville-Rolfe remained working for them until her retirement in 1944.
She was awarded an OBE for her work during the First World War with the War Savings Committee in the Treasury. In 1941, she became both the first woman and the first non-American to receive the Snow Medal from the American Social Hygiene Association, for distinguished services to humanity.
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