Editing Jeremy Thorpe (section)

===Oxford===
[[File:UK-2014-Oxford-Trinity College 01.JPG|thumb|[[Trinity College, Oxford]]]]
Having secured a place at [[Trinity College, Oxford]], Thorpe left Eton in March 1947. In September he began 18 months' [[Conscription in the United Kingdom|National Service]], but within six weeks was discharged on medical grounds after collapsing while attempting an [[Assault course#Military training|assault course]].{{#tag:ref|As Thorpe had apparently told his friends that he would avoid his national service commitment by simulating a seizure that would convince the medical authorities, it seems likely that the "seizure" was a deception.{{sfn|Bloch |2014|p=59}} |group="n"|name="assault"}} As his place at Oxford was unavailable until the following year, Thorpe worked as a temporary preparatory school teacher before his admission to Trinity on 8 October 1948.{{sfn|Bloch|2014|pp=58–61, 65}}

Thorpe was reading Law, but his primary interests at Oxford were political and social.{{sfn|Glover|2015}} From his earliest undergraduate days he drew attention to himself by his flamboyant behaviour; according to Thorpe's biographer, [[Michael Bloch]], his "pallid appearance, dark hair and eyes and angular features, gave him a diabolonian air".{{sfn|Bloch|2014|pp=65–67}} He was quick to seek political office, initially in the [[Oxford University Liberal Democrats|Oxford University Liberal Club]] (OULC) which, despite the doldrums affecting the Liberal Party nationally,{{sfn|Bloch|2014|p=61}} was a thriving club with over 800 members.{{sfn|Bloch|2014|p=69}} Thorpe was elected to the club's committee at the end of his first term; in November 1949 he became its president.{{sfn|Bloch|2014|pp=71–73}} Outside Oxford, Thorpe showed a genuine commitment to Liberalism in his enthusiastic contributions to the party's national election campaigns, and on reaching his 21st birthday in April 1950, applied to have his name added to the party's list of possible parliamentary candidates.{{sfn|Bloch|2014|pp=73–74}}

Beyond the OULC, Thorpe achieved the presidency of the Oxford University Law Society, although his principal objective was the presidency of the [[Oxford Union]], an office frequently used as a stepping-stone to national prominence. Normally, would-be presidents first served in the Union's junior offices, as Secretary, Treasurer or Librarian, but Thorpe, having impressed as a confident and forceful debater, decided early in 1950 to try directly for the presidency. He was easily defeated by the future broadcaster [[Robin Day]].{{sfn|Bloch|2014|pp=75–80}} His single-minded pursuit of office, and the dubious strategies he sometimes employed, led to some acrimonious campaigns, but he gained many supporters, and later in 1950 beat two formidable contenders—the socialist [[Dick Taverne]] and the Conservative [[William Rees-Mogg]]—to secure the presidency for the [[Hilary term]] of 1951.{{sfn|Glover|2015}}{{sfn|Bloch|2014|p=85}}

Thorpe's term as president was marked by the range of distinguished guest speakers that he recruited, among them the future Lord Chancellor [[Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone|Lord Hailsham]], the barrister and former Liberal MP [[Norman Birkett]], and the humorist [[Stephen Potter]].{{sfn|Bloch|2014|pp=85–86}} The time-consuming nature of his various offices meant that Thorpe required a fourth year to complete his law studies, which ended in the summer of 1952 with a [[British undergraduate degree classification#Degree classification|third-class honours degree]].{{sfn|Glover|2015}}

At Oxford, Thorpe enjoyed numerous friendships with his contemporaries, many of whom later achieved distinction.{{sfn|Glover|2015}} These were almost exclusively with men; even so, he was not identified as a member of any of Oxford's homosexual sets. He confided to a friend that politics provided him with the necessary level of emotional excitement, thus making sexual relationships unnecessary. Thus, Bloch suggests, he was accepted by his fellow-students as "a basically asexual character, wrapped up in politics and his career".{{sfn|Bloch|2014|p=90}}