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Ernest Marples

(Alfred) Ernest Marples, Baron Marples (9 December 1907 – 6 July 1978) was a British Conservative politician, who served as Postmaster General and Minister of Transport.

Marples was born at 45 Dorset Road, Levenshulme, Manchester, Lancashire. His father had been a renowned engineering charge-hand and Manchester Labour campaigner, and his mother had worked in a local hat factory. Marples attended Victoria Park Council School and won a scholarship to Stretford Grammar School. By the age of 14 he was already active in the Labour Movement, as well as earning money by selling cigarettes and sweets to Manchester football crowds. He also played football for the YMCA team.

He worked as a miner, a postman, a chef and as an accountant. He was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1941 and was medically discharged with the rank of Captain in 1944. He set up his own company of Civil Engineers (Marples, Ridgeway & Partners - Primarily road construction) with a bank loan. By 1945 he had joined the Conservative Party and was elected to Member of Parliament for Wallasey.

He joined the British government in 1957 as Postmaster General, and introduced the subscriber trunk dialling (STD) telephone system which eliminated the use of operators on national phone calls. (At that time the telephone network was still under the control of the General Post Office). On 2 June 1957, he started the first draw for the new Premium Bonds scheme.

As Minister of Transport (14 October 1959–16 October 1964), he brought in roadside yellow lines, parking meters and seat belts. It was also under Ernest Marples that Dr Richard Beeching was appointed chairman of the British Railways Board. After a study of railway traffic, Beeching produced a report in 1963 proposing the closure of a further of the remaining of Britain's railway network. The resultant closures, most of which were carried out under the Wilson Labour Government of 1964–1970, became known as the Beeching Axe. While Marples was a minister, his two-thirds shareholding in his road construction firm was divested to his wife, thereby avoiding conflict of interest rules.

He retired from the House of Commons at the February 1974 general election, and in May that year he was made a life peer as Baron Marples, of Wallasey in Cheshire.

In early 1975, Marples suddenly fled to Monaco to escape allegations of tax fraud and law-suits from former employees and tenants of his slum properties He died there in 1978, aged 70.