under a railway line in Brixton, 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. He was to sell his Harwood Court block of flats for £500,000 to Vin International which would refurbish and sell them for between £2.25 million and £2.5 million. Marples would only be liable for capital gains tax at 30% on the transfer to Vin which, as an offshore company, would only be liable for stamp duty at 2%. The plan failed following the change of government in 1974. After reports of this plan were published in the Daily Mirror, the Treasury froze Marples' assets in Britain. 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. Marples' final years were spent on his 45-acre vineyard estate in Fleurie, France. He died in a Monte Carlo hospital on 6 July 1978. In his will, he left property valued at £388,166. He is buried in a family plot in Southern Cemetery, Manchester. Popular culture 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. References External links BBC film interview with Marples discussing his passion for jogging The Papers of Ernest Marples held at Churchill Archives Centre 1907 births 1978 deaths British Secretaries of State Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Conservative Party (UK) life peers Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Ministers in the Eden government, 1955–1957 Ministers in the Macmillan and Douglas-Home governments, 1957–1964 Ministers in the third Churchill government, 1951–1955 People educated at Stretford Grammar School Maples, Ernest Royal Artillery officers Secretaries of State for Transport (UK) UK MPs 1945–1950 UK