Эрнест Марплс: Саяхат министрі және теміржол реформаларының тарихы

Marples worked as a miner, a postman, a chef and an accountant. In the Second World War he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1941, rose to the rank of captain and was medically discharged in 1944. In 1937 Marples married Edna Florence Harwood, the daughter of a Nottingham businessman. This marriage was dissolved in 1945.

Marples joined the Conservative Party and in 1945 was elected as Member of Parliament for Wallasey. In 1951, Winston Churchill appointed him a junior minister in the Conservative Government 1951–1955.

Marples was Minister of Transport from 14 October 1959 until the Conservatives lost the 1964 general election on 16 October 1964. As Minister of Transport, Marples oversaw the introduction of parking meters and the provisional driving licence in 1958, panda crossings in 1962 and two Transport Acts. The Road Traffic Act of 1960 introduced the MOT test, roadside single yellow lines and double yellow lines, traffic wardens, and the 250 cc engine limit for learner motorcyclists. The Transport Act 1962 dissolved the British Transport Commission (BTC) which had overseen the railways, canals and road freight transport and established the British 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 the Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854". In anticipation of the 1962 Act, the government appointed Dr Richard 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. The Beeching 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.

Marples retired from the House of Commons at the February 1974 general election. On 8 May 1974 he was made a life peer as Baron Marples of Wallasey in the County of Merseyside.

In the late 1940s Marples was a director of a company called Kirk & Kirk, which was a contractor in the construction of Brunswick Wharf Power Station at Blackwall in London. Marples met civil engineer Reginald Ridgway (1908–2002), who was working as a contractor for Kirk & Kirk. 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. 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. by this time, his shares had come to be worth between £350,000 and £400,000. Marples Ridgway built the Hammersmith flyover in London at a cost of £1.3 million, immediately followed by building the Chiswick flyover. including the £4.1 million extension of the M1 into London, referred to as the Hendon Urban Motorway at the time.

When Lord Denning made his 1963 investigation into the security aspects of the Profumo affair 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 broadcaster and investigative journalist Tom 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. The story was suppressed and did not appear in Denning's final report.

Early in 1975, Marples suddenly fled to Monaco.</blockquote>

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. 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. and he had been convicted of drinking and driving for which he received a one year ban and a £45 fine. 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. In November 1977, he paid £7,600 to the British government in settlement of his breach of exchange control regulations, following which he made a return to London. In his will, he left property valued at £388,166. He is buried in a family plot in Southern Cemetery, Manchester.

In 2009, his name was used for a website, ernestmarples. com, that campaigned to have the UK Postcode dataset released as Open Data and drew threats of legal action by the Royal Mail against its founders. The dataset was opened up on 1 April 2010 following support from many people, including MPs, and Code Point Open can now be downloaded free with data. gov. uk. 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.