Neville
Barnes Wallis, the son of a doctor, was born in Ripley, Derbyshire,
on 26th October, 1887. After leaving school at sixteen he started
work in a shipyard on the Thames. In 1908 he transferred to a shipyard
in Cowed and began designing ships.
In 1919
Wallis was recruited by Vickers to design airships.
Together with his longtime friend, H. B. Pratt, he designed the R.9,
the R23 and the R.26. He was also chief engineer on the R.80. Unlike
the traditional Zeppelin, this airship
had a streamlined look. However, in 1921, the Chief of Air Staff decided
to bring an end to building airships.
Vickers
continued to feel that airships had commercial potential and in 1924
Wallis was commissioned to produce the R.100. It was larger than any
other airship built and did not make its maiden flight to Canada until
1930. Later that year the R.101 crashed killing 48 members of its
crew. Airships were now considered too dangerous and the project came
to an end.
Wallis
was now given the task of designing planes. This included the Wellesley
that went on to set a non-stop distance record of 7,158 miles in 1938.
With the
threat of war Wallis began work on the Wellington
Bomber. One novel feature of the Wellington was a vast coil that
could be used to detonate magnetic mines safely from the air.
Wallis
designed the bouncing bombs that were used by Guy
Gibson and the 617 Squadron to successfully
breach the Mohne and Eder dams in the Ruhr during the Dambusters
Raid on 16th May 1943. The rotating bouncing
bomb skipped over the water and exploded while sinking to the
base of the retaining wall of the dam. It produced heavy floods and
badly damaged German production in the Ruhr.
When the
decision was taken to concentrate on area bombing
Wallis began looking at the design of bombers that could drop heavy
bombs. The adapted Avro Lancaster was
able to drop two bombs developed by Wallis, Tallboy
(1944) and Grand Slam (1945).
After the
war Barnes was chief of aeronautical research and development at the
British Aircraft Corporation at Weybridge (1945-71). However, several
of his projects, including a cargo submarine, were not built. Neville
Barnes Wallis died at Leatherhead on 30th October, 1979.
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