Sociologist and University Principal Lloyd Ewen Braithwaite was born in Belmont, Trinidad on July 16, 1919. In the late 1930s and early 1940s he took an active interest in radical politics. He supported trade unions; was involved in the Negro Welfare Cultural and Social Association (NWCSA); was among the founders of the journal New Dawn, an organ for the dissemination of "progressive" views; was a member of the Why Not Group, a forum for discussing social problems in the society; and in 1942, was a foundation member of the People's Party. In 1944, he qualified as a solicitor, but instead of pursuing a career in the legal profession, he joined the Civil Service, working in the Social Welfare Department. In 1946 he entered the London School of Economics to pursue an undergraduate degree in sociology. In 1950, he abandoned postgraduate studies to take up a research fellowship at the Institute of Social and Economic Research of the newly created University College of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. His "social Stratification in Trinidad" (1953), published in the journal Social and Economic Studies, placed him among the founders of Caribbean sociology. In 1965 he became Professor of Sociology and, four years later, he was appointed Principal and Pro-Vice Chancellor of the St. Augustine Campus of The University of the West Indies (1969-1984). He died on January 10, 1995.