Talk:Ernest Marples

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On one of the bridges over the M1 motorway there used to be a graffito: 'Marples must go'. A protest about something that he was doing during his time as Minister of Transport. It remained for many years after he had actually gone. -- RHaworth 08:04, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC)

The graffiti over the M1 likely refers to several things, Marples' involvement in the Beeching report and the 'axeing' of railway services, his perceived conflict of interest in this action (the M1 itself having been constructed by the Marples-Ridgeway company) and his subsequent tax evasion scandal - given often as his reason for going to Monaco. I feel all these should be explored in depth on this page, but I have little primary source information on the man - I must try to dig some up over here. Marples fascinates me, since he presided over so much of the GPO telephone modernization and seems to have been quite the technologist, but he has a whole darker side to him. Perhaps someone in the UK would be better placed to help in these areas? --Warphammer 00:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above statement. The 'myth' that Dr Beeching was to 'blame' for the railway closures in the 1960s needs to be voiced more publicly. He (Beeching) had no direct decision making powers whereas Marples did. Added to the fact that Marples had what amounted to two-thirds in shares of the road construction company Marples-Ridgeway at the time proves very suspicious. These shares were conveniently transferred to his wife whilst he was a Minister. Its unbelieveable that Marples was 'signing off' line closeures and his company then building some of the replacement roads is amazing. What surprises me is why there has not been any formal public enquiry into this affair, considering the impact this has had on UK transport over the last 40 years. Subsequent ministers Tom Fraser and Barbara Castle must also share blame, indeed more route mileage closed under them than it did Marples. They had the power to stop some of the closures but chose not to for political reasons no doubt.

I did read somewhere that Marples was wanted by the Inland Revenue for tax fraud, I believe he absconded to Monaco before justice caught up with him [1]. Details are sketchy and hard to come by; I will do some more digging and add to the article at a later stage.

A book titled 'The Great Railway Conspiracy' by David Henshaw (1994) - ISBN 0948135484 is a good read on this subject. I believe it is out of print now but copies come and go on ebay.