John Jeremy Thorpe was a British politician. He served as the Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979, and as leader of the Liberal Party between 1967 and 1976. In May 1979 he was tried at the Old Bailey on charges of conspiracy and incitement to murder, arising from an earlier relationship with Norman Scott. He was acquitted on all charges, but the case, and the furore surrounding it, ended his political career. He did not return to public life until the mid-1980s, when he was disabled by Parkinson’s disease.
About Jeremy Thorpe in brief
John Jeremy Thorpe was a British politician. He served as the Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979, and as leader of the Liberal Party between 1967 and 1976. In May 1979 he was tried at the Old Bailey on charges of conspiracy and incitement to murder, arising from an earlier relationship with Norman Scott, a former model. He was acquitted on all charges, but the case, and the furore surrounding it, ended his political career. He did not return to public life until the mid-1980s, when he was disabled by Parkinson’s disease. Thorpe’s father was John Henry Thorpe, a lawyer and politician who was the Conservative MP for Manchester Rusholme between 1919 and 1923. His mother, Ursula Norton-Griffiths, was the daughter of another Conservative MP, Sir John Norton-griffiths. The Thorpe family claimed kinship with distant forebears carrying the name, including Sir RobertThorpe, who was briefly Lord Chancellor in 1372, and Thomas Thorpe who was Speaker of the House of Commons in 1453–54. The more recent Thorpe ancestors were Irish, stemming from the elder of two brothers who were, according to family tradition, soldiers under Cromwell during the combat in Ireland. Both John Henry and Jeremy would benefit from this connection, as the Christie-Miller family of Cheshire paid the costs of their education. Jeremy was his parents’ third child, and was privileged under the care of nannies and nurses, until 1935.
He became a proficient violinist and often performed at school concerts, attending Wagner’s day school in Queen’s Gate. Among the strongest friendships of these was that of Lloyd George, a friend of the family—Ursula was a former Liberal family friend of George Lloyd George. He also maintained many contacts with many of the leading politicians and politicians of the time. He died in London on September 14, 2011, at the age of 87. He is survived by his wife, two daughters, and a son-in-law, David Thorpe. His great-grandfather was a Dublin policeman who, having been a labourer, joined the police as a constable and rose to the rank of superintendent. One of his many sons, John Thorpe,. became an Anglican priest and served as Archdeacon of Macclesfield from 1922 to 1932. The archdeacon’s marriage in 1884 to a daughter of the prosperous Anglo-Irish Aylmer family brought considerable wealth to the Thorpes, as did his marriage to Olive Christie- Miller. The couple had two children, Olive and Jeremy, as well as the elder daughter Olive, who went on to become a successful barrister and author. The younger son, John Henry, became a barrister-at-large and later a vicar. He had a son, Jeremy, who became an MP for the London Borough of Southwark in 1973. He has a daughter, Olive Thorpe-Smith, who is also a well-known author.
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This page is based on the article Jeremy Thorpe published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
