Barnes Wallis - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, CBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

FRS, RDI

Royal Designers for Industry

Royal Designer for Industry is a distinction established by the British Royal Society of Arts in 1936, to encourage a high standard of industrial design and enhance the status of designers. It is awarded to people who have achieved "sustained excellence in aesthetic and efficient design for...

, FRAeS (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979), was an English scientist

Scientist

A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...

, engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb

Bouncing bomb

A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed specifically to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner, in order to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-determined...

used by the RAF

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

in Operation Chastise

Operation Chastise

Operation Chastise was an attack on German dams carried out on 16–17 May 1943 by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, subsequently known as the "Dambusters", using a specially developed "bouncing bomb" invented and developed by Barnes Wallis...

(the "Dambusters" raid) to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. The raid was the subject of the 1954 film The Dam Busters
The Dam Busters (film)
The Dam Busters is a 1955 British Second World War war film starring Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd and directed by Michael Anderson. The film recreates the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany with Wallis's...

, in which Wallis was played by Michael Redgrave

Michael Redgrave

Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author.-Youth and education:...

. Among his other inventions were the geodetic airframe and the earthquake bomb.

Career

Barnes Wallis was born in Ripley, Derbyshire

Ripley, Derbyshire

Ripley is a town in the Amber Valley area of Derbyshire in England.- Earliest history :Not much information is available as to when Ripley was founded, but it existed at the time of the Domesday Book, when it was held by a man called Levenot....

and educated at Christ's Hospital

Christ's Hospital

Christ's Hospital is an English coeducational independent day and boarding school with Royal Charter located in the Sussex countryside just south of Horsham in Horsham District, West Sussex, England...

in Horsham, leaving school at seventeen to start work in January 1905 at Thames Engineering Works at Blackheath

Blackheath, London

Blackheath is a district of South London, England. It is named from the large open public grassland which separates it from Greenwich to the north and Lewisham to the west...

, southeast London. He subsequently changed his apprenticeship to J. Samuel White's

J. Samuel White

J. Samuel White was a British shipbuilding firm based in Cowes, taking its name from John Samuel White . It came to prominence during the Victorian era...

, the shipbuilders based at Cowes

Cowes

Cowes is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east Bank...

on the Isle of Wight. He originally trained as a marine engineer and in 1922 he took a degree in engineering via the University of London External Programme

University of London External Programme

The University of London International Programmes is a division of the University of London that manages external study programmes.Several colleges and institutes of the University of London offer degrees through the programme, including Birkbeck, Goldsmiths, Heythrop College, Institute of...

. He left J. Samuel White's in 1913 when an opportunity arose for him to work on airship design and then aircraft design

Aeronautics

Aeronautics is the science involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of airflight-capable machines, or the techniques of operating aircraft and rocketry within the atmosphere...

. He worked for Vickers

Vickers

Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 1999.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...

- latterly part of the British Aircraft Corporation

British Aircraft Corporation

The British Aircraft Corporation was a British aircraft manufacturer formed from the government-pressured merger of English Electric Aviation Ltd., Vickers-Armstrongs , the Bristol Aeroplane Company and Hunting Aircraft in 1960. Bristol, English Electric and Vickers became "parents" of BAC with...

until his retirement in 1971.

Aircraft design

His many achievements include the first use of geodetic design in engineering and in the gasbag wiring of Vickers' R100

R100

HM Airship R100 was a privately designed and built rigid airship made as part of a two-ship competition to develop new techniques for a projected larger commercial airship for use on British empire routes...

in 1930, which, at the time, was the largest airship

Airship

An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...

ever designed. He also pioneered, along with John Edwin Temple, the use of light alloy and production engineering in the structural design of the R100. Nevil Shute Norway was the chief calculator for the project, responsible for calculating the stresses on the frame. Despite a better-than-expected performance and a successful return flight to Canada in 1930, the R100 was broken up following the tragedy that befell its "sister" ship, the R101

R101

R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airship completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry-appointed team and was effectively in competition...

(which was designed and built by a team from the Government's Air Ministry); the later crash of the Hindenburg
LZ 129 Hindenburg
LZ 129 Hindenburg was a large German commercial passenger-carrying rigid airship, the lead ship of the Hindenburg class, the longest class of flying machine and the largest airship by envelope volume...

led to the abandonment of airships as a mode of mass transport.

By the time of the R101 crash, Wallis had moved to Vickers' aircraft division. The pre-war aircraft designs of Rex Pierson, the Vickers Wellesley

Vickers Wellesley

The Vickers Wellesley was a British 1930s light bomber built by Vickers-Armstrongs at Brooklands near Weybridge, Surrey, for the Royal Air Force...

and the Vickers Wellington

Vickers Wellington

The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engine, long range medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs' Chief Designer, R. K. Pierson. It was widely used as a night bomber in the early years of the Second World War, before being displaced as a...

, both employed Wallis's geodetic design in the fuselage and wing structures. The latter was one of the most robust airframes ever developed, and pictures of its skeleton largely shot away, but still sound enough to bring its crew home safely, are still impressive. The geodetic construction offered a light and strong airframe (compared to conventional designs) with clearly defined space within for fuel tanks, payload etc. However the technique was not easily transferred to other aircraft manufacturers nor was Vickers able to build other designs in factories tooled for geodetic work.

Bomb design

After the outbreak of the Second World War

World War II

in Europe in 1939, Wallis saw a need for strategic bombing

Strategic bombing

Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in a total war with the goal of defeating an enemy nation-state by destroying its economic ability and public will to wage war rather than destroying its land or naval forces...

to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war and he wrote a paper entitled "A Note on a Method of Attacking the Axis Powers

Axis Powers

The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

". Referring to the enemy's power supplies he wrote (as Axiom

Axiom

In traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered either to be self-evident or to define and delimit the realm of analysis. In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true...

3): "If their destruction or paralysis can be accomplished they offer a means of rendering the enemy utterly incapable of continuing to prosecute the war". As a means to do this he proposed huge bombs that could concentrate their force and destroy targets which were otherwise unlikely to be affected. Wallis's first super-large bomb design came out at some ten tonnes, far larger than any current plane could carry. This led him to suggest a plane that could carry it, the "Victory Bomber

Victory Bomber

The British "Victory Bomber" was a Second World War design by Barnes Wallis at Vickers-Armstrongs at Brooklands for a bomber to carry his projected "earthquake bomb" to strategic targets in Germany.-Background:...

", rather than drop the idea.

Early in 1942, Wallis began experimenting with skipping marbles over water tanks in his garden, leading to his April 1942 paper "Spherical Bomb — Surface Torpedo". The idea was that a bomb could skip over the surface of water (avoiding torpedo nets

Torpedo nets

Torpedo nets were a passive naval warship defensive device against torpedoes. Their use was common practice from the 1890s through World War II...

) and sink directly next to a battleship or dam wall as a depth charge

Depth charge

A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon intended to destroy or cripple a target submarine by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a preselected depth in the ocean. Depth charges can be dropped by either surface ships, patrol aircraft, or from...

, with the surrounding water concentrating the force of the explosion on the target. A crucial innovation was the addition of backspin, which caused the bomb to trail behind the dropping aircraft (decreasing the chance of the aircraft being downed by the force of the explosion below), increased the range of the bomb, and also prevented it from moving away from the target wall as it sank. After some initial scepticism, the Air Force accepted Wallis's bouncing bomb

Bouncing bomb

for attacks on the Möhne

Möhne Reservoir

The Möhne Reservoir is an artificial lake in North Rhine-Westphalia, some 45 km east of Dortmund. The dam was built between 1908 and 1913 to help control floods, regulate water levels on the Ruhr river downstream, and generate hydropower. Today, the lake is also a tourist attraction...

, Eder

Edersee

The Edersee Dam is a hydroelectric dam constructed between 1908 to 1914 across the Eder river, near the small town of Waldeck in northern Hesse, Germany, it lies at the northern edge of the Kellerwald...

, and Sorpe dams in the Ruhr area

Ruhr Area

The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...

. The raid on these dams in May 1943 (Operation Chastise

Operation Chastise

) was immortalised in Paul Brickhill

Paul Brickhill

Paul Chester Jerome Brickhill was an Australian writer, whose World War II books were turned into popular movies.-Biography:...

's 1951 book The Dam Busters
The Dam Busters (book)
The Dam Busters is a 1951 book by Paul Brickhill about Royal Air Force Squadron 617, originally commanded by Wing Commander Guy Gibson V.C. during World War II...

and the 1955 film

The Dam Busters (film)

The Dam Busters is a 1955 British Second World War war film starring Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd and directed by Michael Anderson. The film recreates the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany with Wallis's...

of the same name. The Mohne and Eder dams were successfully breached causing damage to German factories and disrupting hydro-electric power.

After the success of the bouncing bomb, Wallis was able to return to his huge bombs, producing first the Tallboy

Tallboy bomb

The Tallboy or Bomb, Medium Capacity, 12,000 lb, was an earthquake bomb developed by the British aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis and deployed by the RAF in 1944...

(6 tonnes) and then Grand Slam

Grand Slam bomb

The Grand Slam was a 22,000 lb earthquake bomb used by RAF Bomber Command against strategic targets during the Second World War.Known officially as the Bomb, Medium Capacity, 22,000 lb, it was a scaled up version of the Tallboy bomb and closer to the original size that the bombs' inventor,...

(10 tonnes) deep-penetration earthquake bombs. These were not the same as the 5-tonne "blockbuster

Blockbuster bomb

Blockbuster or "cookie" was the name given to several of the largest conventional bombs used in World War II by the Royal Air Force...

" bomb, which was a conventional blast bomb. Although there was still no aircraft capable of lifting these bombs to their optimal release altitude, these two bombs could still be dropped from a lower altitude, entering the earth at supersonic speed and penetrating to a depth of 20 metres before exploding. They were used on strategic German targets such as V2 rocket launch sites, submarine pen

Submarine pen

A submarine pen is a bunker which is designed to protect submarines from air attack.The term is generally applied to submarine bases constructed during World War II, particularly in Germany and the occupied countries which were also known as U-boat pens .-Background:Amongst the first...

s, and other reinforced structures, large civil constructions such as viaducts and bridges, as well as the German battleship Tirpitz

German battleship Tirpitz

Tirpitz was the second of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the Imperial Navy, the ship was laid down at the Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and launched two and a half years later in April...

. They were the forerunners of modern bunker-busting bombs.

After the War

Though he did not invent the concept, Wallis did much pioneering engineering work to make the swing-wing

Swing-wing

A variable-sweep wing is an aeroplane wing that may be swept back and then returned to its original position during flight. It allows the aircraft's planform to be modified in flight, and is therefore an example of a variable-geometry aircraft....

concept functional. However, despite very promising wind tunnel

Wind tunnel

A wind tunnel is a research tool used in aerodynamic research to study the effects of air moving past solid objects.-Theory of operation:Wind tunnels were first proposed as a means of studying vehicles in free flight...

and model work, his designs were not adopted. His early "Wild Goose", designed in the late 1940s, was intended to use laminar flow

Laminar flow

Laminar flow, sometimes known as streamline flow, occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between the layers. At low velocities the fluid tends to flow without lateral mixing, and adjacent layers slide past one another like playing cards. There are no cross currents...

, but when this was shown to be unworkable, he developed the swing-wing further for the "Swallow", designed in the mid-1950s, which could have been developed for either military or civil applications. Both Wild Goose and Swallow were demonstrated by large (30ft span) flying scale models without tailplanes; these trials were based at Predannack in Cornwall. Swallow was cancelled in the round of cuts following the Sandys Defence White Paper in 1957, and in an attempt to gain US finance to continue the work, details of the project were passed to the USA. No funds for the work were forthcoming from the USA, and Wallis's design ideas were passed over in the UK in favour of the BAC TSR-2

BAC TSR-2

The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 was a cancelled Cold War strike and reconnaissance aircraft developed by the British Aircraft Corporation for the Royal Air Force in the late 1950s and early 1960s...

(on which one of Wallis's sons worked) and Concorde

Concorde

Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde was a turbojet-powered supersonic passenger airliner, a supersonic transport . It was a product of an Anglo-French government treaty, combining the manufacturing efforts of Aérospatiale and the British Aircraft Corporation...

. Wallis was quite critical of both the TSR-2 and Concorde, stating that a swing-wing design would be more appropriate. In the mid-1960s, TSR-2 was ignominiously scrapped in favour of the American F-111 – which had swing wings based on Wallis's work which the Americans had received – though this order was also subsequently cancelled.

In the 1950s, Wallis developed an experimental rocket-propelled torpedo

Torpedo

The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

codename HEYDAY. It was powered by compressed air and hydrogen peroxide

Hydrogen peroxide

Hydrogen peroxide is the simplest peroxide and an oxidizer. Hydrogen peroxide is a clear liquid, slightly more viscous than water. In dilute solution, it appears colorless. With its oxidizing properties, hydrogen peroxide is often used as a bleach or cleaning agent...

. Tests were conducted from Portland

Isle of Portland

The Isle of Portland is a limestone tied island, long by wide, in the English Channel. Portland is south of the resort of Weymouth, forming the southernmost point of the county of Dorset, England. A tombolo over which runs the A354 road connects it to Chesil Beach and the mainland. Portland and...

Breakwater in Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

. The unusual shape was designed to maintain laminar flow

Laminar flow

over much of its length. The only surviving example is on display in Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower

Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower

Explosion! is The Museum of Naval Firepower situated in the former Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Priddy's Hard, in Gosport, Hampshire, England. The museum tells the story of naval firepower from Gunpowder to the Exocet missile....

at Gosport

Gosport

Gosport is a town, district and borough situated on the south coast of England, within the county of Hampshire. It has approximately 80,000 permanent residents with a further 5,000-10,000 during the summer months...

.

In 1955 Wallis agreed to act as a consultant to the project to build the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Some of the ideas he suggested are the same as or closely related to the final design, including idea of supporting the dish at its centre, the geodetic structure of the dish, and the master equatorial control system. Unhappy with the direction it had taken, Wallis left the project halfway into the design study and refused to accept his £1000 consultant's fee.

In the 1960s, Wallis also proposed using large cargo submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

s to transport oil and other goods, thus avoiding surface weather conditions. Moreover, Wallis's calculations indicated, the power requirements for an underwater vessel are lower than for a comparable conventional ship and they can be made to travel at a much higher speed. He also proposed a novel hull structure which would have allowed greater depths to be reached, and the use of gas turbine engines in a submarine, using liquid oxygen. In the end, nothing came of Wallis's submarine ideas.

During the 1960s and into his retirement, he developed ideas for an "all-speed" aircraft, capable of efficient flight at all speed ranges from subsonic to hypersonic

Hypersonic

In aerodynamics, a hypersonic speed is one that is highly supersonic. Since the 1970s, the term has generally been assumed to refer to speeds of Mach 5 and above...

.

The story described in The Dam Busters reflected the difficulties Wallis often faced in persuading those in authority or who controlled funding sources to support his ideas.

Following the terrible death toll of the aircrews involved in the Dambusters raid, he made a conscious effort never again to endanger the lives of his test pilots. His designs were extensively tested in model form, and consequently he became a pioneer in the remote control

Remote control

A remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...

of aircraft.

Wallis became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1945 and was knight

Knight

A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

ed in 1968.

He was awarded the sum of £10,000 for his war work from the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors

Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors

A Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors is a periodic Royal Commission of the United Kingdom used to hear patent disputes.On October 6, 1919 a Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors was convened to hear 11 claims for the invention of the tank....

. Such was his grief at the loss of so many airmen in the dams raid, Wallis donated the entire sum to Christ's Hospital School in 1951 to allow them to set up the RAF Foundationers' Trust, which allows the children of RAF personnel killed or injured in action to attend the school.

Personal

In April 1922, Wallis met his cousin-in-law, Molly Bloxam, at a family tea party. She was only 17 and he was 35, and her father forbade them from courting. However, he allowed Wallis to assist Molly with her mathematics courses by correspondence, and they wrote some 250 letters, enlivening them with fictional characters such as "Duke Delta X". The letters gradually became personal, and Wallis proposed marriage on her 20th birthday. They married on 23 April 1925, and were married for 54 years until his death in 1979.

He lived with his family in Effingham

Effingham

Effingham is an English village in the Borough of Guildford in Surrey, bordering Mole Valley. There is a railway station at Effingham Junction , at the point where a branch of the Sutton & Mole Valley Line joins the New Guildford Line - these are both routes between London Waterloo and Guildford.-...

, Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

, for 49 years from 1930 until his death in 1979. They had four children, Elisabeth, Christopher, Mary and Barnes, and also adopted Molly's sister's children when their parents died.

His daughter Mary Eyre Wallis later married Harry Stopes-Roe

Harry Stopes-Roe

Dr. Harry Stopes-Roe is a British philosopher and humanist. He is a Vice-President of the British Humanist Association.He is the son of Marie Stopes, the women's rights and family planning pioneer, and Humphrey Verdon-Roe. He started his career as a physicist, and received a BSc and MSc in...

, a son of Marie Stopes

Marie Stopes

Marie Carmichael Stopes was a British author, palaeobotanist, campaigner for women's rights and pioneer in the field of birth control...

.

His son Chris Wallis died in 2006 and had been instrumental of late in the restoration of the watermill and its building on the Stanway Estate near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. His son Barnes also died recently.

Fiction

Wallis appears as a fictionalized character in Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter

Stephen Baxter is a prolific British hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.- Writing style :...

's The Time Ships
The Time Ships
The Time Ships is a 1995 science fiction novel by Stephen Baxter. A sequel to The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, it was officially authorized by the Wells estate to mark the centenary of the original's publication. It won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the Philip K. Dick Award in 1996, as...

, the authorised sequel to The Time Machine
The Time Machine
The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 for the first time and later adapted into at least two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It indirectly inspired many more works of fiction...

. He is portrayed as a British engineer in an alternate history

Alternate history (fiction)

Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate...

, where the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

does not end in 1918, and Wallis concentrates his energies on developing a machine for time travel

Time travel

Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...

. As a consequence, it is the Germans who develop the bouncing bomb

Bouncing bomb

.

In Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, he is said to have developed the Cavorite weapon used to win the war on Mars

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...

after the suicide of Cavor

The First Men in the Moon

The First Men in the Moon is a 1901 scientific romance novel by the English author H. G. Wells. The novel tells the story of a journey to the moon undertaken by the two protagonists, the impoverished businessman Mr Bedford and the brilliant but eccentric scientist Dr. Cavor...

Memorials

There is a statue to Wallis in Herne Bay, Kent
Herne Bay, Kent
Herne Bay is a seaside town in Kent, South East England, with a population of 35,188. On the south coast of the Thames Estuary, it is north of Canterbury and east of Whitstable. It neighbours the ancient villages of Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury local government district...

just a short distance from Reculver
Reculver
Reculver is a hamlet and coastal resort situated about east of Herne Bay in southeast England. It is a ward of the City of Canterbury district in the county of Kent. Reculver once occupied a strategic location at the western end of the Wantsum Channel, between the Isle of Thanet and the Kent...

where his bouncing bomb was tested. This statue was created by American sculptor Tom White in 2008.
A Red Wheel heritage plaque commemorating Wallis's contribution as "Designer of airships, aeroplanes, the 'Bouncing Bomb' and swing-wing aircraft" was erected by the Transport Trust
Transport Trust
The Transport Trust runs the Our Transport Heritage programme which places Red Wheel plaques on especially important sites of transport heritage and, through the programme's website , links together some one thousand transport heritage sites around Britain...

at Wallis' birthplace in Ripley, Derbyshire
Ripley, Derbyshire
Ripley is a town in the Amber Valley area of Derbyshire in England.- Earliest history :Not much information is available as to when Ripley was founded, but it existed at the time of the Domesday Book, when it was held by a man called Levenot....

on 31 May 2009.
A Leiwsham Council
London Borough of Lewisham
The London Borough of Lewisham is a London borough in south-east London, England and forms part of Inner London. The principal settlement of the borough is Lewisham...

plaque is located at 241 New Cross Road in New Cross, London
New Cross
New Cross is a district and ward of the London Borough of Lewisham, England. It is situated 4 miles south-east of Charing Cross. The ward covered by London post town and the SE 14 postcode district. New Cross is near St Johns, Telegraph Hill, Nunhead, Peckham, Brockley, Deptford and Greenwich...

, where Wallis lived from 1892 to 1909.
The Student Union Building on the University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...

North Campus is named in Wallis's honour; Wallis was awarded lifetime membership of the Students' Union in 1967.
Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham Trent University is a public teaching and research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as a new university in 1992 from the existing Trent Polytechnic , however it can trace its roots back to 1843 with the establishment of the Nottingham Government School of Design...

also has a building named after Wallis, on Goldsmith Street.
QinetiQ
QinetiQ
Qinetiq is a British global defence technology company, formed from the greater part of the former UK government agency, Defence Evaluation and Research Agency , when it was split up in June 2001...

's site in Farnborough, Hampshire
Farnborough, Hampshire
-History:Name changes: Ferneberga ; Farnburghe, Farenberg ; Farnborowe, Fremborough, Fameborough .Tower Hill, Cove: There is substantial evidence...

includes a building named in Wallis's honour, the former site of the Royal Aircraft Establishment
Royal Aircraft Establishment
The Royal Aircraft Establishment , was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence , before finally losing its identity in mergers with other institutions.The first site was at Farnborough...

.
There is a Barnes Wallis public house by the side of Howden railway station
Howden railway station
Howden railway station serves the town of Howden in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately north of the town in the hamlet of North Howden. The station is managed by Northern Rail, but is also served by First TransPennine Express and First Hull Trains.The station was...

on the Hull to York Line
Hull to York Line
The Hull to York Line is a railway line in northern England. It runs from Hull north west to York, via Selby.Between Selby and York services can take one of two routes. Most services run via Sherburn-in-Elmet, but there is also a more direct route which follows the East Coast Main Line to...

. It is in view of the site of the airship hangars.
There is a Barnes Wallis Drive in Byfleet
Byfleet
Byfleet is an inland island village forming a suburb of Woking in Surrey, England. It is in the east of the borough between the River Wey and the River Mole, and is within the M25 motorway....

in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

on the approach to what was the Vickers/British Aerospace complex, within the former Brooklands race circuit. Additionally, there is a Barnes Wallis Close in Chickerell
Chickerell
Chickerell is a small town and parish in the West Dorset district of Dorset, England. The parish has a population of 5,282 .-History:Although Roman remains have been found, indicating that there has been settlement in the area for many years, as a modern town, Chickerell is recent and one of...

, Weymouth, which is within sight of the Fleet Lagoon bounded by Chesil Beach
Chesil Beach
Chesil Beach, sometimes called Chesil Bank, in Dorset, southern England is one of three major shingle structures in Britain. Its toponym is derived from the Old English ceosel or cisel, meaning "gravel" or "shingle"....

, where Wallis tested the bouncing bomb, and also a Barnes Road which is off Wallis Street in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
There is also a Barnes Wallis Drive in Apley
Apley
Apley is a hamlet on a back road near the hamlet of Kingthorpe, south of Wragby, Lincolnshire, England. Apley church is dedicated to St Andrew.Apley beck marks the course of a 12th century monastic canal linking Bullington Priory to Barlings eau....

in Telford
Telford
Telford is a large new town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, approximately east of Shrewsbury, and west of Birmingham...

, Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...

, and Segensworth
Segensworth
Segensworth is a business park at Whiteley / Fareham in Hampshire in England. It is near junction 9 of the M27 midway between Southampton and Portsmouth....

in Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

.
In golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

, a "Barnes Wallis" is a shot that bounces over a water hazard.
A public house named after Sir Barnes Wallis is located in the town of his birth, Ripley, Derbyshire.
Howden School had three "House Groups" named after Barnes Wallis, Dag Hammarskjold and Albert Schweitzer

External links

Examples of papers from RAF museum
The Papers of Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, Janus Archive, Cambridge
A short biography of Wallis
The Barnes Wallis Memorial Trust
Sir Barnes Wallis, Iain Murray
BBC history page on Barnes Wallis
The Dambusters (617 Squadron) and Barnes Wallis
HEYDAY torpedo, Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower
Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower
Explosion! is The Museum of Naval Firepower situated in the former Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Priddy's Hard, in Gosport, Hampshire, England. The museum tells the story of naval firepower from Gunpowder to the Exocet missile....

.
"The Development of Rocket-propelled Torpedoes", by Geoff Kirby (2000) includes HEYDAY.
Wallis's impact on Effingham where he lived and the story of the swing-wing aircraft that flew without a tail

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Bomb design

After the War

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