David Brandon - Ernest Marples: The Shadow Behind Beeching

The Shadow Behind Beeching

David Brandon

and

Martin Upham

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by

Pen and Sword Transport

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd.

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright David Brandon and Martin Upham, 2022

ISBN 9781526760180

eISBN 9781526760197

The right of David Brandon and Martin Upham to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword Books Archaeology, Atlas, Aviation, Battleground, Discovery, Family History, History, Maritime, Military, Naval, Politics, Railways, Select, Transport, True Crime, Fiction, Frontline Books, Leo Cooper, Praetorian Press, Seaforth Publishing, Wharncliffe and White Owl.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact

PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED

47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England

E-mail:

Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

or

PEN AND SWORD BOOKS

1950 Lawrence Rd, Havertown, PA 19083, USA

E-mail:

Website: www.penandswordbooks.com

T he authors would like to thank staff at the Postal Museum, the National Archive at Kew and the British Library for their professional support so readily given. After this book had been commissioned, the authors became aware of the recent deposit of Ernest Marples personal papers with the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge. Especial thanks are due to Allen Packwood, director of the archives, who did everything he could to facilitate our work; to Tom Davies, who catalogued the papers so thoroughly and to the other staff for their generous support. Through their efforts we were able to have access to and make use of a mass of primary evidence much of which has not previously been available to researchers.

We would also like to thank John Scott Morgan for commissioning the current work and giving his enthusiastic support to the project.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book but if any have inadvertently been overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

E rnest Marples (19071978) was one of the most significant and controversial British politicians of the mid-twentieth century. He initiated radical change in three government departments. In one of these, the Ministry of Transport, he controversially employed Dr Richard Beeching (19131985) to produce a detailed analysis of the state of the railway industry and to draw up a prescription for transforming it into a modern, efficient and profitable business. His findings were published on 27 March 1963. Officially titled The Reshaping of British Railways but usually known as The Beeching Report, it elicited an immediate and extraordinary furore and it has continued to be a source of often passionate argument down to the present time. In many quarters Beeching is regarded as the butcher of Britains railways and his name lives on, continuing to attract opprobrium. However, the politician who actually gave him the job and set the parameters within which to work has been curiously neglected. This is his first biography.

Drawing on archive material, some of which has only recently become available for research purposes, the authors provide a biographical outline of the life of Ernest Marples. Underpinning this theme, the authors examine the development of railway and road transport from the early twentieth century to around 1968. They argue that the weakness of the transport policies initiated by successive governments throughout this period contributed to the creation of a serious crisis for the countrys road and railway system by the late 1950s. By this time the nationalised railways were making unacceptable financial losses while the road system was woefully overstretched and incapable of coping with a seemingly exponential increase in demand and usage. This crisis required radical action.

The measures brought about by Marples must be seen in the context of the wider economic, social and political changes shaping the United Kingdom after the Second World War. By that time there had been major growth in the influence and power of the pro-road lobby. Road haulage had clearly shown its superiority over rail for certain logistical tasks. Equally, growing numbers of people felt that it was their right, not simply a privilege, to enjoy the personal freedom and flexibility which they saw as being offered by private motoring. While large numbers of people had a sentimental attachment to the railways, this did not necessarily extend to using them. Their old-fashioned image compared unfavourably with the modishness increasingly associated with the private car.