Jeremy Thorpe leaves £220k ...and Lloyd George’s cigar box
FORMER Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, who died last December aged 85, has left a treasure trove of political memorabilia – including a walking stick and cigar box once owned by the former Prime Minister, David Lloyd George.
The colourful politician’s estate was valued at only just over £220,000, but his legacy included some intriguing historical items, ranging from photographs of world leaders and statesmen to a rare Royal prayer book for the Coronation of Edward VII in 1902.
The former MP for North Devon was one of the party’s brightest stars until his spectacular fall from grace when he was accused of conspiring to murder Norman Scott, a former male model who claimed to have been his lover. Although Thorpe was acquitted at the Old Bailey in 1979, his political career never recovered.
In his will, he left the National Liberal Club
his collection of photos of world leaders, as well as Lloyd George’s bone walking stick and a cigar box that was presented to the then Chancellor in 1911 by a fellow Liberal to mark the passage of the reforming National Insurance Act.
Thorpe, who died after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, had planned to leave most of his worldly goods to his second wife Marion, formerly the Countess of Harewood, whom he married in 1973, but she predeceased him by nine months.
Instead, the bulk of his estate, including his share of his 16th Century thatched cottage in Higher Chuggaton, Devon, will go to his son Rupert from his first marriage to Caroline Allpass, who died in a car crash in 1970.