Naming of Tom Rolt - 1991-05-06 (cropped)

Sonia Rolt OBE (15 April 1919 – 22 October 2014) was a campaigner for the

Inland Waterways Association The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) is a registered charity in the United Kingdom and was formed in 1946 to campaign for the conservation, use, maintenance, restoration and sensitive development of British Canals and river navigations. No ...

(IWA) of Great Britain and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2010 for her services to industrial archaeology and heritage. At the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

she volunteered to work on the canals. After the war she became active on the council of the new Inland Waterways Association campaigning for the retention of the canals. Subsequently she married one of the founders,

Tom Rolt Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt (usually abbreviated to Tom Rolt or L. T. C. Rolt) (11 February 1910 – 9 May 1974) was a prolific English writer and the biographer of major civil engineering figures including Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Thomas Tel ...

, and after his death became a vice-president of the Association.

Early life

Born Sonia South in New York to British parents, she trained as an actress at the

London Theatre Studio The London Theatre Studio was a drama and design school in Upper Street, Islington, London, from 1936 to 1939. It was directed by the French actor and director Michel Saint-Denis. The school was the first in England to teach theatrical design a ...

. During the Second World War, she volunteered to work on the canals and joined the tough life of the boatmen, mainly carrying coal and steel between Midlands factories and coal pits. Because of the "IW" badge the women who worked on the canals wore, they were named the '' Idle Women'' by the canal men, an insult they adopted with pride. She met and married, in 1945, a handsome but illiterate boatman called George Smith who had spent all his life on the canals, and got to know much of the lore and culture of the boatmen, including the ghost stories. When the Inland Waterways Association was established by Tom Rolt and

Robert Aickman Robert Fordyce Aickman (27 June 1914 – 26 February 1981) was an English writer and conservationist. As a conservationist, he co-founded the Inland Waterways Association, a group which has preserved from destruction and restored England's inl ...

in 1946, she took part in the first delegation to the

Ministry of Transport A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government ag ...

and became a member of the council. In 1950 she worked with Tom Rolt on a report on the working conditions of boatmen but this was not a priority for the IWA which was mainly concerned with the leisure use of the canals, and indirectly led to her exclusion from the organisation together with Rolt.

Marriage to Tom Rolt

When Tom Rolt left the waterways to return to his childhood home at Stanley Pontlarge, he also parted from his first wife, Angela. Rolt recounts that after a trade union meeting on behalf of working boaters he was having a cup of tea in "some squalid Birmingham cafe" with Sonia when "I looked up from my plate to find Sonia regarding me with the deepest compassion and tenderness". Some months later towards the end of 1951, Sonia wrote to him that she had decided to leave the waterways and Tom invited her to join him for a week's walking in Shropshire, which he described as "the most memorable week of my life". After her marriage to George Smith broke up, Sonia and Tom married and settled at Stanley Pontlarge and had two sons whilst Tom was writing the biographies of engineers that made him famous, eventually rescuing him from the financial problems that had peaked at this time. She restored the house and became active with the

Landmark Trust The Landmark Trust is a British architectural conservation, building conservation charitable organization, charity, founded in 1965 by John Smith (Conservative politician), Sir John and Lady Smith, that rescues buildings of historic interest or ...

becoming their furnishing manager and looking after libraries. She also worked with Tom on the preservation of

Talyllyn Railway The Talyllyn Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd Talyllyn) is a narrow gauge preserved railway in Wales running for from Tywyn on the Mid-Wales coast to Nant Gwernol near the village of Abergynolwyn. The line was opened in 1865Drummond 2015, page 17 ...

Later years

After Tom's death in 1974, the breach with the IWA was gradually healed by her being given an honorary membership in 1983 and her appointment as a vice president in 1993. She edited Tom's autobiographical trilogy, ''The Landscape Trilogy'' and published ''A Canal People, The Photographs of Robert Longden'' in 1997. She also worked with the

Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (also known as Anti-Scrape) is an amenity society founded by William Morris, Philip Webb, and others in 1877 to oppose the destructive 'restoration' of ancient buildings occurring in ...

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

and advised on the restoration of old ships.

References

Citations Bibliography * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rolt, Sonya British waterways activists Talyllyn Railway 1919 births 2014 deaths Alumni of the London Theatre Studio Officers of the Order of the British Empire British people associated with Heritage Railways