Nobody is all bad, but former Transport Minister Ernest Marples perhaps came close. Even in the most generous appraisal, his legacy as businessman, MP and husband looks slippery.
Born to a humble family in Manchester, in 1907, the grammar-school boy was earning a living turning large Victorian houses in London into flats even before WW2 broke out. Post-war, the young Tory MP was well placed to benefit from the housing boom with his civil engineering firm Marples Ridgeway. As Postmaster General from 1957 he presided over the introduction of Premium Bonds, direct-dialling telephone exchanges and postcodes – all innocent enough.
His shameless self-promotion was dismissed by most as the can-do zeal of a working-class lad made good. With his slicked-back hair and bow tie, Marples had an end-of-the-pier look and spoke in the fake-posh tones of a 1960s northerner using a telephone for the first time. Still, Macmillan liked Marples and made him Minister for Transport in his 1959 cabinet.
Marplesʼ reputation darkens when it comes to motorways. Having opened the first sections of the M1 and M6, it was pointed out that his major shareholding in a road-building firm might amount to a conflict of interest. Marplesʼ answer was to sell his shares to his wife for a nominal £1, with the option to buy back at the same price. How much he benefited from the building of the M1 isnʼt clear, but given the speed with which the job was done (two years – unimaginable today), perhaps he earned it.
Even smellier is Marplesʼ commissioning of Dr Richard Beechingʼs infamous report. The brutal pruning of the railway network it recommended can only have been in the long-term business interest of anyone who owned a road-building company. Worse, it set us up for the gridlock and pitiful public transport situation we endure to this day.
Marples was certainly prolific as Minister for Transport. Against thebackdrop of huge increases in road traffic, he introduced double yellow lines, pedestrian crossings, traffic wardens, ʻmodernʼ road signage, MoT tests, the 250cc motorcycle limit for learners plus compulsory crash helmets for ʼbikers, and he was widely disliked by the public for his parking meters (the first of which actually appeared in 1958, outside the US embassy).
His enthusiasm for cars is
