Sylvia Scaffardi (born Crowther-Smith; 20 January 1902 – 27 January 2001) was a civil rights campaigner and one of the co-founders of the

National Council for Civil Liberties Liberty, formerly, and still formally, called the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), is an advocacy group and membership organisation based in the United Kingdom, which challenges unjust laws, protects civil liberties and promotes hu ...

(NCCL), later known as Liberty. Later in life, she became a published writer, with her first book published in 1982. In the late 1980s, Scaffardi joined the Green Party UK.

Biography

Scaffardi was working as an

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

in 1926 when she met Ronald Kidd, with whom she went on to set up the NCCL. The formation of the NCCL in 1934 was the high point of their political collaboration, which ended with his death in 1942. Scaffardi continued to sit on the organisation's Executive Committee until the mid-1950s, and remained a lifelong supporter of Liberty. Scaffardi was never religious and described herself as a "lifetime

humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...

". At the age of 56, she married John Scaffardi, who died in 1971.

References

1902 births 2001 deaths English humanists English atheists Free speech activists National Council for Civil Liberties people {{UK-activist-stub