Sir Barnes Neville Wallis
by Peter Hoar

Sir Barnes Wallis was an engineer whose work, particularly for the Vickers aircraft

company at Brooklands, helped to push the limits of aeronautical engineering during the

twentieth century.

He was born in Ripley Derbyshire on the 26th of September 1887 and educated at Christ’s

Hospital London. His first job at The Thames Engineering Works in Dartford saw him

working on naval engines, the first British racing car and the first London taxi. An uncle

found him a position in John Samuel Whites on the Isle of Wight as a trainee marine

engineer. He was joined by Hartley B. Pratt who introduced him to the airship world.

Vickers in Barrow recruited them both to work on a rigid airship, the R9. It was cancelled in

1915 and Wallis joined the Artists Rifles in Epping Forest. Discovering he was an engineer

he was tasked with replacing their cesspit with a new sanitary system It was very

successful and he considered it one if his proudest achievements. When the R9 was

revived in 1916 Pratt and Wallis were drafted into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve to

continue working on the airships creating a new linear profile on the R80 and introducing

the colour coded electrical system we still use today. In 1922 Wallis designed the private

R100 which flew successfully to Canada in June 1930 but due to problems with other

airships (the R101 crashed on its way to India) the project was discontinued.

Wallis then moved to Effingham to work for the first time on aeroplanes for Vickers at

Brooklands. He had developed the theory of geodetics in his work on airships and he now

applied it to lessen the weight and strengthen the structure of aeroplanes. developed a

geodetics to help design many aircraft. In 1938 one, the Wellesley, flew non-stop 7,158

miles from Egypt to Darwin. This is still a record today. His Wellington bomber flew

throughout WW2 and 11,461 were constructed at Brooklands, Chester and Blackpool.

Wallis also designed several bombs including the famous ‘bouncing bomb’, the Dam

buster. Another design, weighing 10 tonnes, was to be carried by an aircraft he designed

named Victory but the Air Ministry deemed it too expensive. The Lancaster could not carry

the bomb until 1945 but it might have shortened the war had Victory been built.

After WW2 he designed both swing wing and hypersonic aircraft. He also proposed a

nuclear-powered submarine to route under the North Pole ice to Australia drastically

reducing the time and distance. In 1945 he designed a stratospheric chamber to test

Vickers designed aircraft at very high altitudes He added a Mach 4 hypersonic wind tunnel

in 1955 which tested Concorde. In 1952 he designed the geodetic Parkes telescope

situated in New South Wales which transmitted pictures of the first lunar landing to the

world and is still working 24 hours a day.

He suffered frequent rejection of his ideas by governing authorities but was finally knighted

in 1971. He retired when 83 years old and devoted much of his time to his old school,

Christ’s Hospital, now at Horsham and to his beloved village of Effingham where he was Chairman of the Parish Council for some ten years and an active and respected member of the congregation of St Lawrence Church.

He died in 1979 aged 92 and was laid to rest in the churchyard of St Lawrence Church close to the east window.

Further reading

Vivien White, Not Just Bouncing Bombs. The Life and Career of Sir Barnes Wallis by Vivien White

https://effinghamresidents.org.uk/barnes-wallis