Sybil Neville Rolfe

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 Diseases. She has been described as a feminist and a eugenicist. She took the role of honorary secretary upon the Society's founding until 1920. Therefore, the Society aimed to reduce poverty in England through reducing the birth rate of the lowest classes and those of low intelligence. 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. 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.

Awards Neville-Rolfe was awarded an OBE for her work during the First World War with the War Savings Committee in the Treasury.

Beliefs Neville-Rolfe's beliefs concerning eugenics and prostitution developed when she trained and worked as a rescue worker in a shelter for troubled girls.

Prostitution Throughout her life Neville-Rolfe took a stance against the practice of prostitution and suggested many ways in which this problem could be dealt with, especially within the article she published in 1918 titled "The Changing Moral Standard: Reprinted from The Nineteenth Century and After." Instead of blaming the prostitute for the profession that she ended up in, Neville-Rolfe blames the degeneration of morals and the perpetuation of the profession by three different interest groups associated with the practice: the prostitutes themselves who supply the profession, those that purchase and demand their services, and the middle-men who encourage this practice for their own material gain. Each of these groups have their own distinct subgroups.

Personal life She was born Sybil Katherine Burney in Queen's House, Royal Naval College, Greenwich on 22 June 1885. She was the daughter of Admiral Sir Cecil Burney and Lucinda Marion Burnett. Her brother was Dennistoun Burney, a marine, aeronautical engineer, and Conservative MP. As a child, she often lodged in different naval quarters, but these moves were always temporary. She was home-schooled by French and English women who were privately hired governesses. She knew multiple languages as she travelled to France and Germany as a teenager, however even this knowledge did not compare to her yearning for a University education.

Her first husband was Lieutenant Arthur Corry Gotto, whom she married on 29 December 1905, though this marriage was extremely brief due to his death in a coaling accident in September 1906. Her second marriage was to Commander Clive Neville-Rolfe on 24 March 1917.