The Lord Marples | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Minister of Transport | |
| In office 14 October 1959 – 16 October 1964 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan Alec Douglas-Home |
| Preceded by | Harold Watkinson |
| Succeeded by | Tom Fraser |
| Postmaster General | |
| In office 17 January 1957 – 14 October 1959 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | Charles Hill |
| Succeeded by | Reginald Bevins |
| Member of Parliament forWallasey | |
| In office 26 July 1945 – 8 February 1974 | |
| Preceded by | George Reakes |
| Succeeded by | Lynda Chalker |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Alfred Ernest Marples (1907-12-09)9 December 1907 Levenshulme,Lancashire, England |
| Died | 6 July 1978(1978-07-06) (aged 70) |
| Resting place | Southern Cemetery, Manchester |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Spouse(s) | Edna Florence Harwood (1937–1945) (dissolved) Ruth Alianore Dobson (1956–1978) (his death)[1] |
Alfred Ernest Marples, Baron Marples,PC (9 December 1907 – 6 July 1978) was aBritishConservative politician who served asPostmaster General (1957–1959) andMinister of Transport (1959–1964).
As Postmaster General, he oversaw the introduction of thePremium Bond scheme and ofpostcodes. His period as Minister of Transport was controversial. He both oversaw significant road construction (he opened the first section of theM1 motorway) and the closure of a considerable portion of the national railway network with theBeeching cuts. His involvement in the road construction businessMarples Ridgway, of which he had been managing director, led to concerns regardingconflict of interest. In later life, Marples was elevated to the peerage before fleeing toMonaco at very short notice to avoid prosecution for tax fraud.
Marples was born at 45 Dorset Road,Levenshulme,Manchester,Lancashire.[1] His father had been a renowned engineering charge-hand and ManchesterLabour campaigner, and his mother had worked in a local hat factory. Marples attended Victoria Park Council School and won a scholarship toStretford Grammar School. By the age of 14 he was already active in thelabour movement, as well as earning money by selling cigarettes and sweets to Manchester football crowds. He also played football for aYMCA team.
Marples worked as a miner, a postman, a chef and an accountant. In theSecond World War he was commissioned into theRoyal Artillery in 1941, rose to the rank ofcaptain and was medically discharged in 1944.
In 1937 Marples married Edna Florence Harwood, the daughter of aNottingham businessman. This marriage was dissolved in 1945.[1]
In 1956 Marples married his former secretary Ruth Dobson (1919–2014), who on his elevation to thepeerage in 1974 became Lady Marples.[1][2]
Marples joined theConservative Party and in 1945 was elected asMember of Parliament forWallasey. In 1951,Winston Churchill appointed him a junior minister in theConservative Government 1951–1955.[3] Marples was a minister underHarold Macmillan andAlec Douglas-Home throughout theConservative Government 1957–1964.
In 1957, Harold Macmillan appointed MarplesPostmaster General. On 2 June 1957, Marples started the first draw for the newPremium Bond scheme (the computer generating the random numbers was coincidentally namedERNIE). At that time the telephone network was controlled by theGeneral Post Office, and saw the introduction ofsubscriber trunk dialling (STD), which eliminated the use of operators on national phone calls, and it has also been claimed that he introduced the firstpostcodes to the UK, although these were both actually technical innovations which would probably have been inevitable regardless of the presiding politician.[4]
Marples wasMinister of Transport from 14 October 1959 until the Conservatives lost the1964 general election on 16 October 1964.
As Minister of Transport, Marples oversaw the introduction ofparking meters and the provisional driving licence in 1958, thePink Zone (a parking scheme for the Christmas period in central London),[5]panda crossings in 1962 and two Transport Acts. The Road Traffic Act of 1960 introduced theMOT test, roadsidesingle yellow lines anddouble yellow lines,traffic wardens, and the 250 cc engine limit for learner motorcyclists.
TheTransport Act 1962 dissolved theBritish Transport Commission (BTC) which had overseen the railways, canals and road freight transport and established theBritish Railways Board; it also put in place measures which simplified the process of closing railways. The Act was described as the "most momentous piece of legislation in the field of railway law to have been enacted since theRailway and Canal Traffic Act 1854".[6]
In anticipation of the 1962 Act, the government appointed DrRichard Beeching as Chairman of the British Railways Board with a brief to recommend and implement such changes as were necessary to end the losses that were growing rapidly at the time. TheBeeching cuts, or "Beeching Axe" that followed resulted in the major closures for both stations and lines. It may not be entirely a coincidence that as Beeching was closing railway lines, the government was providing funding for the construction of motorways, which were being built by companies in which Marples had an interest.[7]
Marples retired from theHouse of Commons at theFebruary 1974 general election. On 8 May 1974 he was made alife peer asBaron Marples ofWallasey in the County ofMerseyside.[8]
In the late 1940s Marples was a director of a company called Kirk & Kirk,[3] which was a contractor in the construction ofBrunswick Wharf Power Station atBlackwall in London.[9] Marples met civil engineer Reginald Ridgway (1908–2002), who was working as a contractor for Kirk & Kirk.[9] In 1948 the two men founded Marples Ridgway and Partners, acivil engineering company that started with one five-ton ex-army truck and one crane.[9]
The new partnership took over Kirk & Kirk's contract at Brunswick Wharf[9] and in 1950 Marples severed his links with Kirk & Kirk.[3] Marples Ridgway's subsequent contracts included building power stations in England, theAllt na Lairige dam in Scotland, roads inEthiopia and (significantly) England, and a port inJamaica.[9] The Bath and Portland Group took over Marples Ridgway in 1964.[9]
Shortly after he became a junior minister in November 1951, Marples resigned as managing director of Marples Ridgway but continued to hold some 80% of the firm's shares.[3][10] When he was made Minister of Transport in October 1959, Marples undertook to sell his shareholding in the company as he was now in clear breach of the House of Commons' rules on conflicts of interest.[10] He had not done so by January 1960, at which time theEvening Standard reported that Marples Ridgway had won the tender to build theHammersmith Flyover and that the Ministry of Transport's engineers had endorsed theLondon County Council's rejection of a lower tender.[3][10][11]
Marples' first attempt to sell his shares was blocked by the Attorney-General on the basis that he was using his former business partner, Reg Ridgway, as an agent to ensure that he could buy back the shares upon leaving office.[10] Marples therefore sold his shares to his wife, reserving himself the possibility to reacquire them at the original price after leaving office;[3][12][13][14][15] by this time, his shares had come to be worth between £350,000 and £400,000.[10]
In 1959, shortly after becoming minister, Marples opened the first section of theM1 motorway. It was understood that although his former company was not directly contracted to build the M1, Marples Ridgway was alleged to have "certainly had a finger in the pie".[16] Marples Ridgway built theHammersmith flyover in London at a cost of £1.3 million, immediately followed by building theChiswick flyover.[9]
Marples Ridgway was also involved in other major road projects in the 1950s and 1960s[17] including the £4.1 million extension of the M1 into London, referred to as the Hendon Urban Motorway at the time.[18]
WhenLord Denning made his 1963 investigation into the security aspects of theProfumo affair and the rumoured affair between theMinister of Defence,Duncan Sandys and theDuchess of Argyll, he confirmed to Macmillan that a rumour that Ernest Marples was in the habit of using prostitutes appeared to be true.[19] In early 2020, the rumours were corroborated by broadcaster and investigative journalistTom Mangold, based on the diaries of Lord Denning's then-secretary, Thomas Critchley. The diaries reported the transport minister's fetish for being whipped while dressed in women's clothing, as described in great detail by one of the prostitutes who had provided these services to Marples, and confirmed at the time by her detailed knowledge of the interior of Marples' home where the events took place.[20] The story was suppressed and did not appear in Denning's final report.[21]
Early in 1975, Marples suddenly fled toMonaco.[22] He left just before the end of the tax year, fearing that he would otherwise be liable for a substantial tax bill.[22]
Among the journalists who investigated his unexpected flight wasRichard Stott (later editor of theDaily Mirror):
In the early 70s ... he tried to fight off a revaluation of his assets which would undoubtedly cost him dear ... So Marples decided he had to go and hatched a plot to remove £2 million from Britain through hisLiechtenstein company ... there was nothing for it but to cut and run, which Marples did just before the tax year of 1975. He left by the night ferry with his belongings crammed into tea chests, leaving the floors of his home inBelgravia littered with discarded clothes and possessions ... He claimed he had been asked to pay nearly 30 years' overdue tax ...The Treasury froze his assets in Britain for the next ten years. By then, most of them were safely in Monaco and Liechtenstein.[23]
The flight came at a time when Marples was facing problems on several fronts. Tenants of his block of flats in Harwood Court, Upper Richmond Road,Putney, London, were demanding that he repair serious structural faults and had threatened legal action.[22] He was being sued for £145,000 by theBankers Trustmerchant bank in relation to an agreement made with the French company Ernest Marples et Cie.[22] He was also being sued by John Holmes, the chartered surveyor and director of Marples' property company Ecclestone Enterprises, for wrongful dismissal and who was claiming £70,000 in damages.[22] TheInland Revenue was demanding that he pay nearly 30 years' back taxes on his residence in Eccleston Street, Belgravia, London, as well ascapital gains tax on his properties in Kensington.[22] In addition, in 1974, he had lost 130 cases of wine to a fire in a store he owned under a railway line in Brixton,[24] and he had been convicted ofdrinking and driving for which he received a one-year ban and a £45 fine.[25]
His departure came in the wake of the failure of a plan to avoid paying tax on his properties by involving a Liechtenstein-based company with which he had been involved for more than ten years.[22] He was to sell his Harwood Court block of flats for £500,000 to Vin International which would refurbish and sell them for between £2.25 million and £2.5 million.[22] Marples would only be liable forcapital gains tax at 30% on the transfer to Vin which, as an offshore company, would only be liable forstamp duty at 2%.[22] The plan failed following thechange of government in 1974.[22] After reports of this plan were published in theDaily Mirror,the Treasury froze Marples' assets in Britain.[26] In November 1977, he paid £7,600 to the British government in settlement of his breach ofexchange control regulations, following which he made a return to London where, with agreement from HMRC, he was allowed to stay with friends for six weeks.[26]
By now Marples had sold Chateau Chaintre and his final years were spent on his 18-hectare (44-acre) vineyard estate in Les Laverts,Fleurie,France.[22] He died inPrincess Grace Hospital Centre, Monaco, on 6 July 1978.[27] In his will, he left property valued at £388,166.[28] He is buried in a family plot inSouthern Cemetery, Manchester.[29]
In 2009, his name was used for a website, ernestmarples.com, that campaigned to have theUK Postcode dataset released asOpen Data and drew threats of legal action by theRoyal Mail against its founders.[30][31] The dataset was opened up on 1 April 2010 following support from many people, including MPs,[32][33] and Code-Point Open can now be downloaded free withdata.gov.uk.[34]
The founders of the site claim not to have been aware of the controversies concerning Ernest Marples when they chose his name for the website.[35]
the M1 was very much the darling of Ernest Marples, Minister of Transport in Harold Macmillan's Tory government in the 50s, who just happened to be a director of Marples Ridgway, a civil engineering company specialising in road construction. Although the company didn't officially build the M1, it certainly had a finger in the pie.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forWallasey 1945–February 1974 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Postmaster General 1957–1959 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Transport 1959–1964 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
| Other | |
