 Whilst in college, he was elected Secretary of the Trinity College Dialectic Society, and won numerous prizes, including the Wigram Allen Essay Prize (1924), the Leeper Debating Prize (1924 and 1925), and the President's Medal for Oratory (1925).He left with his parents, Mr and Mrs Reginald Fraser of Mt Lofty, South Australia, for the United Kingdom in 1927 for further study at the London School of Economics.He worked as a writer for the "Daily Herald" newspaper before unsuccessfully attempting to get elected to Parliament in 1935, standing for the Labour Party in York.