The Corruption & Times Of Ernest Marples 1950

From humble beginnings to the top echelons of political power, changing many aspects of the country along the way. But were some of his decisions made for his own benefit & financial gain.

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This episode is about a man who went from rags  to riches on his way to the highest echelons of   British politics as well as being responsible for  some of the most iconic infrastructure projects of   the age in this country, and in many ways changed  how society operates today. But he was known for  

Gaining large contracts from which he profited  personally as a government minister, stocks and   shares manipulator, some say a sexual deviant and  tax evader. But he made changes to Britain that   are lasting to this day. He was vilified by some  but applauded by others. This is Vintage Scandals  

And the account of The Corruption & Times Of  Ernest Marples. A man wobbles out of the pub   and walks to his car after a convivial lunch. He  spots a traffic warden adhering a fixed penalty  

Notice to the vehicle for parking on double yellow  lines. He would love to give the warden a piece of   his mind but he has now vanished. All he can do  is mutter “Marples you should have been strangled  

At birth”. So who came up with the bright idea of  double yellow lines, where yu can’t park at any   time? He was a working class Tory called Ernest  Marples and was born in Dorset Road in Manchester   in 1907. His father was an engineering supervisor  and a Labour activist, and his mother worked in  

A hat factory. He was a cleaver child and won a  scholarship to Stretford Grammar School. By the   age of 14 he was starting to become active in the  Labour Party. During his early career he tried a   number of jobs from being a miner, postman, cook  and finally an accountant, and also dabbled in  

Converting Victorian houses into flats. World War  2 came and he ended up as a captain in the Royal   Artillery before being invalided out in 1944. In  1937 he had married Edna Harwood, but they were   divorced in 1945. Some years later he married his  secretary Ruth Dobson. He switched from the Labour  

Party to the Conservatives which must have led  to frank and business-like conversations with his   father. He secured a seat in 1945 for Wallasey.  This was very impressive as the Tories were wiped   out in the election that year. In 1957, Harold  Macmillan appointed Marples Postmaster General.  

On the 2nd of June, Marples started the first draw  for the new Premium Bond scheme. At that time the   telephone network was controlled by the General  Post Office, and saw the introduction of direct   dialling, which eliminated the use of operators  on national phone calls, and it has also been  

Claimed that he introduced the first postcodes  to Britain, although these were both actually   technical innovations which would probably have  been inevitable regardless of who the minister   had been. After the war Marples started to enter  the civil engineering and construction business  

And in the process acquired a 5 ton truck and a  crane. He founded a company called Kirk & Kirk,   but his real break came in 1948 when he met a  civil engineer called Reginald Ridgeway who was   a contractor on the Brunswick Power station.  They formed a company called Marples Ridgeway  

Which went on to build another power station in  England, a dam in Scotland, roads in Ethiopia   and England as well as a port in Jamaica. On  Churchill’s return to power in 1951 he secured   a junior post in the Department of Housing. The  then Minister claimed he could build 300,000  

New homes that year. That Minister was Harold  Macmillan who would later become Chancellor of   the Exchequer and then Prime Minister in 1957.  After housing he was appointed Minister for   Pensions and National Insurance and returned to  the back benches on the retirement of Churchill. 

But let us take a closer look at housing as it  was at the time. Instead of some inexperienced MP   from the back benches Macmillan now had a junior  minister in Marples who was both an accountant   and knew something about construction. The new  homes were eventually built and the two men by all  

Accounts got on well. When Macmillan became Prime  Minister and took up residence in Downing Street,   Marples began his real ascent to high office.  First he became the Postmaster General and in 1959   the Minister for Transport. He held the latter  position until the defeat of the Tories in 1964.  

From then on he was relegated back to the back  benches and would languish there for 10 years.  During his tenure he introduced parking metres  and pedestrian crossings. He was also responsible   for double yellow lines, traffic wardens and the  breathalyser test. He was expected to dispose  

Of his shares in his company so as to avoid any  conflict of interest. But Marples was beginning   to show a tricky side to his character. At first  he wanted to pass his shares over to his business   partner Ridgeway, with an option to repurchase  the shares at the original sale price. This was  

Opposed by the Treasury on the grounds that  Ridgeway would be the agent for Marples. But   this conflict of interest remained. 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. 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. He   had not done so by January 1960, at which time the  Evening Standard reported that Marples Ridgway had  

Won the tender to build the Hammersmith Flyover  and that the Ministry of Transport’s engineers   had endorsed the London County Council’s rejection  of a lower tender. Marples’ first attempt to sell   his shares was blocked by the Attorney-General on  the basis that he was using his former business  

Partner as an agent to ensure that he could buy  back the shares upon leaving office. Marples   therefore sold his shares to his wife, reserving  himself the possibility to reacquire them at the   original price after leaving office. By this  time, his shares had come to be worth between  

£350,000 and £400,000. In 1959, shortly after  becoming minister, Marples opened the first   section of the M1 motorway. It was understood  that although his former company was not directly   contracted to build the M1, Marples Ridgway  was alleged to have a significant business  

Interest. The company built the Hammersmith  flyover in London at a cost of £1.3 million,   immediately followed by building the Chiswick  flyover. Marples Ridgway was also involved in   other major road projects in the 1950s and 1960s  including the £4.1 million extension of the M1  

Into London. The first Transport Act introduced  parking meters, provisional driving licences,   level crossings, single and double yellow lines,  MOT tests, traffic wardens and a 250cc limit on   learner motorcyclists. But it was the second  Transport Act that is still controversial to  

This day. The Government’s finances were not  as bad as the late 1940s but still precarious.   In 1945 a delegation from the Society of Motor  Manufacturers visited Germany in order to see the   famous autobahn system. They recommended 800 miles  of motorways which included London to Cardiff,  

London to Carlisle via Birmingham, Bristol  to Leeds and Warrington to Hull. This was   shelved until the late 1950s. In 1939 there were  2 million cars on the road. Despite ten years of   austerity it had risen to just under 3 million.  But by 1959 when Marples had become head of the  

Transport Ministry it had jumped to 5 million  cars. At long last the public abandoned public   transport for the freedom and convenience the  motor car. The country needed all the foreign   exchange it could get and the share of exports  of motor industry products had risen from £272m  

In 1950 to £617m in 1960. The country’s railway  system was in dire straits and the canals were in   decline. At its height just before world war one  it boasted 37,720 km of track. But it was losing   money at an alarming rate. Its share of the  transport market had dropped from 16% to only  

5%. By 1963 the British Transport Commission who  oversaw the railways could not pay the interest on   its loans. The second Transport Act abolished  this institution and replaced it with British   Railways with the famous Dr Beeching as chairman  of the board. He proposed the closure of 2,363  

Stations and 8,000 km of railway track, which  amounted to a cut of 55% of rail capacity. At   the same time traveling by car whether for work  or leisure and the transport of goods by lorry   was rising by 10% per year. The Government had to  choose between upgrading either the railway system  

Through electrification or the roads by promoting  motorways. It chose the roads and Marples was in   the right place to profit from it. Certain groups  opposed the closure of the railways of which the   most famous member was the poet John Betjeman.  But the real opposition to Marples came not from  

A poet but from motorists. In the autumn of 1963  stickers appeared on cars with the words ‘Marples   must go’. Ironically, on the overpass bridge  at Luton the same piece of graffiti appeared.   As he had opened the first section of the M1  motorway this was not lost on the public. For  

An enthusiast of the motor car he had upset his  natural allies. Objectors, among other things,   hated the dreaded traffic wardens and the  introduction of drink driving laws in which Ernest   Marples appeared on Pathe News advocating the ban,  not to mention the introduction of yellow lines on  

The roads around the country. The public wanted  all the positives from the expanding road network   without any of the drawbacks. Here was a man with  a good track record if at times controversial. He   might not get the keys to No 10 but his prospects  were looking good. He survived Macmillan’s Night  

Of the Long Knives in which a number of his  ministerial colleagues were sacked and kept his   job. The Prime Ministers successor, Alec Douglas  Hume kept him on as Minister for Transport which   lasted until the Conservatives lost the election  in 1964. Inadventenly Marples got caught up in  

The Profumo scandal. The point about Transport is  that you cannot have secrecy. People need to know   about motorways, road closures, tides, airports,  ferry and railway schedules, otherwise the country   grinds to a halt. When Lord Denning made his 1963  investigation into the security aspects of the  

Profumo scandal and the rumoured affair between  the Minister of Defence, Duncan Sandys and the   Duchess of Argyll, he confirmed to Macmillan  that a rumour that Ernest Marples was in the   habit of using prostitutes appeared to be true.  In early 2020, the rumours were corroborated by  

An investigative journalist, based on the  diaries of Lord Denning’s then-secretary,   Thomas Critchley. As the report was due to  be finished a voluntary witness appeared in   Whitehall and gave evidence to Lord Denning and  his No 2, Thomas Critchley. One of her clients was  

Ernest Marples and he had unusual tastes. He liked  dressing up in women’s clothing and being beaten.   The transport minister’s fetish for being whipped  while crossdressing, was 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 at 33 Eccelstone Square where the events had   taken place. The story was suppressed and did  not appear in Denning’s final report. After the   1974 election he never achieved high office again  but continued to court controversy. His elevation  

To a life peerage of the now Baron Marples should  have been the crowning glory of a very successful   business and political career. But his misery  did not end here. In 1974 150 cases of fine   wine stored under the arches in Brixton went up  in flames. What made his predicament worse was  

That ironically he was caught drink driving and  received a one year ban and fined £45. As the   then Transport Minister he had be seen on Pathe  News extolling the virtues of forgoing alcohol   when driving. But then hypocrisy has never been  a barrier to a successful political career. But  

For Marples 1974 onwards was a particularly  challenging time and more controversy. Early   in 1975, he suddenly fled to Monte Carlo. He left  just before the end of the tax year, fearing that   he would otherwise be liable for a substantial tax  bill. In the early 70s he had tried to fight off a  

Revaluation of his assets which would undoubtedly  cost him a lot of money. So Marples decided he   had to move abroad quickly and he formed a plot  to remove £2 million from Britain through his   Liechtenstein company as there was nothing for it  but to get his assets out of the country, which  

Marples did just before the end of the tax year.  He left by the cross channel night ferry with his   belongings crammed into tea chests, leaving the  floors of his home in Belgravia littered with   discarded clothes and possessions. He claimed he  had been asked to pay nearly 30 years’ overdue  

Back tax. The Treasury froze his few remaining  assets in Britain for the next ten years. But   by then, most of them were safely in Monaco and  Liechtenstein. The rapid departure abroad came at   a time when Marples was facing problems on several  fronts. Tenants of his block of flats in Harwood  

Court, Upper Richmond Road in Putney, London, were  demanding that he repair serious structural faults   and had threatened legal action. He was being sued  for £145,000 by the Bankers Trust merchant bank   in relation to an agreement made with the French  company Ernest Marples et Cie. 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. The Inland   Revenue was demanding that he pay nearly 30 years’  back taxes on his residence in Eccleston Street,  

Belgravia, as well as capital gains tax on his  properties in Kensington. His departure came in   the wake of the failure of his 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 and his  

Tenants at Harwood Court on the Upper Richmond  Road threatened legal action over multiple   structural defects. He hatched a plan to sell the  block of flats for £500,000 to Vin International   who would refurbish and sell them for between  £2.25 million and £2.5 million. Marples would  

Only be liable for capital gains tax at 30% on  the transfer to Vin which, as an offshore company,   would only be liable for stamp duty at 2%. The  plan failed following the change of government in   1974 and after reports were published in the Daily  Mirror, the Treasury froze all of his remaining  

Assets, missing out on the ones secreted away in  Liechtenstein and Monaco which were beyond their   reach. Also the quantity surveyor and director of  his property company Eccleston Estates continued   to sue him. But he could not return to the UK  and was now a genuine tax exile. In November  

1977 he decided to pay £7,600 to the Treasury for  breaching exchange control regulations in a deal   that allowed him to return to Britain. He has  received a very poor reputation over the years   as partisans for the railway industry see him as  the real villain of the Beeching cuts. But the  

Railways were hamerorging cash and between 1950  to 1962 300 branch lines had been closed with   the loss of 70,000 jobs. Marples certainly had  a conflict of interest in holding onto Marples   Ridgeway shares whilst being Transport Minister.  While Dr Beeching is still remembered among the  

Public, Ernest Marples has largely faded  into obscurity. But his time as a Minister,   though contentious, was necessary so that the  country could develop and move forward. His final   years were spent either in Monte Carlo or tending  to his 45 acre vineyard estate in Fleure in  

France. He died in a Monte Carlo hospital on the  6th of July 1978. In his will, he left property   valued at around £400,000. He is buried in a  family plot in Southern Cemetery, in Manchester