Marples Family History 1

Family History Articles

"Transport Minister Ernest Marples"

Bob Griffin

Ernest Marples - Minister of Transport Anyone observing the political
scene would not have been so sanguine. In October of 1959 the
Conservatives were re-elected for a third term following a campaign
helped by generous donations from powerful roads lobby groups - road
haulage firms, car manufacturers and civil engineering contractors. A start
had already been made on motorway construction and these groups were
lobbying for a huge expansion and upgrading of the motorway and trunk
road network. The Tories were ready to oblige and a new sympathetic
Transport Minister was appointed in the shape of Ernest Marples.

Sympathetic is perhaps an understatement, because he had construction
interests himself, albeit with his shareholding divested to Mrs. Marples -
barely far enough removed for decency. Furthermore, the Ministry of which
he was in charge was decidedly pro road - having only a very minor role as
far as the railways were concerned, this was inevitable.

The railways had returned a working profit into the mid fifties, but this was
no longer the case and a recession had severely dented freight receipts in
1958 contributing to a particularly severe deficit of £48M. On top of that,
there were interest payments to be met on borrowings to finance the
modernisation programme, which was still in its early stages. Although
Britain was now in the 'never had it so good' era, public finances were not
going to be able to support large investment programmes in both road and
rail - if investment in the latter were to be cut back, their competitive
position might be critically damaged, giving the roads lobby a huge boost.
There is no doubt where Marples' sympathies lay, and it certainly wasn't
with the majority of people who still relied on public transport - in 1959
there were only 4.6M cars on the roads, so that while traffic had almost
doubled since 1952, car ownership could be accurately described as a
minority privilege.

Investment in the branch and secondary main lines was halted almost
immediately, while any other major spending needed to be cleared by the
Minister - the effect was to stop
dead any new project.

Dr. Beeching appears on the scene Within a few months, Marples had
appointed a small group of industrialists - the Stedeford Committee - to
give recommendations on the way forward (from his point of view) for the
railways. In the event, this committee wasn't quite as compliant as he might
have wished and it failed to agree. One of its members must have impressed
though, because a certain Dr. Beeching was appointed as the new chairman
of the British Transport Commission in 1961.

A new Transport Act was passed in the following year. Besides replacing
the BTC with the British Railways Board (also chaired by Beeching) this
contained a number of potentially devastating clauses - amongst these was a
requirement for the BRB to make a profit, while the role of Transport Users
Consultative Committees in assessing proposed rail closures was to be
restricted to examining hardship to regular users with no consideration of
the wider social and strategic aspects.

With Beeching being given a brief to return the railways to profitability (a
process already under way thanks to elements of the 1955 modernisation
plan coming on stream), the stage was now set for a major contraction of the
network.

compliments of Borderrail