Jeremy Thorpe

The son of a Conservative MP, he was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Oxford, and was called to the bar in 1954. In 1959 he entered parliament as Liberal MP for North Devon. In 1967, he became party leader after the resignation of Jo Grimond. Thorpe's style, in contrast to Grimond's, was youthful and dynamic, and was sometimes ridiculed as too gimmicky.

Following the death of his first wife, Thorpe married Marion[?], a former concert pianist and ex-wife of the Earl of Harewood[?]. However, in 1976, Thorpe was forced to resign the party leadership after being accused of a homosexual relationship with Norman Scott[?], who claimed to have been threatened by Thorpe after the end of their affair. Thorpe was subsequently one of four defendants in a court case, but was acquitted of attempting to murder Scott. His political career could not withstand the scandal, and he lost his parliamentary seat at the general election of 1979, and retired from public life. Not long after the end of the trial Jeremy Thorpe was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.