Francois Lafitte - The University of Birmingham - Edgbaston, Birmingham, U.K.
Posted by: 
Mike_bjm
N 52° 27.093 W 001° 55.760
30U E 572758 N 5811801
A blue plaque for Francois Lafitte who was Professor of social policy and administration at Birmingham University between 1958 to 1980.
Waymark Code: WM127MF
Location: West Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/21/2020
Views: 2
A blue plaque for Francois Lafitte who was Professor of social policy and administration at Birmingham University between 1958 to 1980. During this time 'he became interested in the matter of family planning; an area in which there was little public authority adviceat the time. Lafitte was particulary concerned with matters of birth control and abortion.'
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The plaque can be found outside the main entrance to the Muirhead Tower building.
'He was especially concerned with the provision of public authority advice on all matters of bith control and abortion< In 196O he was appointed chair on an FPA [Family Planning Association] working party and in 1963 his report, 'Family Planning in The Sixities', was published. It was these interests that dominated the last decades of his life.'
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'Lafitte described himself as 'a young man of no importance who tries to be a good European'. While working for the leading institute for the study of social questions, Political and Economic Planning (later the Social Policy Institute), Lafitte 's produced his most widely known work:'The Internment of Aliens', a Penguin Special published in 1940.' This was the first book that brought to the British 'publics's the mass and indiscriminate internment of German-speaking refugees and polical exile in Britain following Holland's occupation by the Nazis in 1940.'
Amongst Lafitte's other notable books was 'Britain's Way to Social Security published in 1943, 'which highlighted problems with the existing approach and recommended a raft of changes.' (
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