Sylvia Law OBE MA MRTPI (Rtd) President of the Royal Town Planning Institute 1974-75

This year marks the 50th anniversay of the first woman to be elected as President of the Royal Town Planning Institute. Sylvia Law was 43 years old at the time. In her presidential address, Sylvia said she saw herself as being one of a group of presidents who sought to build on the direction of the institute as being "forward and outward".

Sylvia was born on 29 March 1931 in Southport, the elder of two sisters. Much of her earlier life was spent in Rochdale and she was educated at Bury Grammar School and then Lowther College, Bodelwyddan Castle, in North Wales. She read geography at Girton College, Cambridge, and while there became interested in planning.

After graduating, she took up a job teaching at Benenden School, Kent, where she stayed for three years. She then moved on to Unilever, where she worked on research projects. During six months leave of absence from Unilever, Sylvia travelled to South Africa, where she met a British planner who persuaded her to train as a planner. This she did.

In 1959, Sylvia entered local government service with Kent County Council, working on research projects. She attended the Regent Street Polytechnic, where she gained her diploma in town planning and became influenced by the views of Patrick Geddes. During her six years in Kent she produced a report that highlighted the vast expansion of suburbia into the countryside and its damaging effects, which led to a more stringent policy on speculative development in the countryside.

In 1964, she moved to the new Greater London Council (GLC), where she remained until its abolition in 1986. Her work there was primarily on open spaces and outdoor recreation and she became active in the Countryside Recreation Research Advisory Group (CRRAG). This group created a framework for recreational planning and research that provided the springboard for further work in the leisure field.

Sylvia was elected an Associate member of the Institute in 1962. She was elected to the Institute's Council in 1965 and remained a member until she retired.

During those 14 years she worked unstintingly for the institute. Her greatest contributions were made as chairwoman of the education committee, where she was responsible for major changes to the Institute's examinations.

The institute was invited to participate in discussions with the government on the Community Land Bill in 1975 and Sylvia led the group involved in this work, which was successful in persuading the minister to include changes that were eventually enacted.

Sylvia was the chairwoman of the multi-disciplinary working group on the future of planning set up in mid-1975, which included representatives from the Institute of Civil Engineers and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. It reported in November 1976.

Whilst a Principal Planner at the GLC she was awarded an OBE in 1977 and, after standing down from the council, continued to be active in the work of the CRRAG until she retired.

Sylvia Law died on 1 April 2004. President George McDonic wrote a fulsome obituary on her passing and her contribution was recognised by featuring her inauguration image in the centenary banner (2014) above. https://www.planningresource.co.uk/article/443790/rtpi-news-sylvia-law-first-woman-president-dedicated-planner-dies