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Title
Papers of Sir Barnes Neville Wallis
Reference
BNW
Production date
01-01-1901 - 31-12-1977

Creator

Wallis, Barnes Neville Biography Biography
1887-1979, Knight Aeronautical Designer and Engineer Wallis is best known to the general public for his development of the bouncing bomb during World War II, made famous in the Dambusters film. He was born on 26 September 1887 at Ripley in Derbyshire. He was a pupil at Christ's Hospital School and then served as an apprentice, first at the Thames Ironworks, Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Limited, from 1905-1907, then as an apprentice fitter (later draughtsman in the Marine Engine Department) at John Samuel White and Company, Limited, at Cowes on the Isle of Wight from 1907-1913. Wallis' lifelong involvement with aeronautics and association with Vickers began when he was invited to join the Chief Draughtsman - Airships at Vickers as Chief Assistant in the designing of the R9 airship from 1913-1915. Wallis was intermittently engaged on war service and airship design. Towards the end of the First World War, Wallis became engrossed in the design of the R80 airship, but the Royal Air Force discontinued the project in 1921. In 1922 Barnes Wallis took a degree by correspondence in engineering from London University. He served as Chief Engineer, for the Airship Guarantee Company, Vickers Limited, London and Howden, Yorkshire, from 1922-1929. In 1924 the British Government initiated a programme for the construction of two experimental airships, one of which, the R100, was designed and constructed by the Airship Guarantee Company, as subsidiary of Vickers. Barnes Wallis designed this airship individually. The loss of the R101 in 1930 brought an abrupt end to all airship development in Great Britain. Wallis' attention was diverted to aircraft. Wallis was invited to join the Aviation Department of Vickers as Chief Designer (Structures) and was almost entirely associated with the Weybridge Design Office, which post he filled from 1930-1937. He was appointed Special Director in 1936, where he worked on the use of geodetic design and construction for Wellesley and Wellington aircraft. In aircraft design, Wallis is best known for his use of geodetic construction. He had the opportunity of applying this method when Vickers constructed a single engine low wing monoplane that came to be known as the Wellesley. The next aircraft with which Wallis was associated was the Wellington twin-engined bomber, which first flew in 1936. For much of the time during the Second World War, Wallis was heavily engaged in supervising improvements to the Wellingtons and adaptations for special purposes. At the same time, he developed his ideas on strategic bombing of German industrial targets, including the dams in the Ruhr district. For this purpose Wallis devised the bouncing bombs. The authorities gave Wallis permission to put into practice his long held idea of a ten-ton bomb, nicknamed Tallboy to destroy targets conventional bombs would hardly dent. Towards the end of the Second World War, Wallis' ten ton bomb, Grand Slam was first dropped in March 1945. Wallis served as Assistant Chief Designer (Aviation Section) for Vickers-Armstrong at Weybridge from 1938-1944. He was awarded the CBE in 1943. After the Second World War, Wallis served as Chief of Aeronautical Research and Development at Vickers-Armstrong from 1945-1971 and was appointed Special Director and Head of Independent Research in 1946, with freedom to develop at will. Wallis turned his attention to variable geometry or swing-wing aircraft. Over the next thirteen years, with first the Wild Goose, then Swallow models, Wallis developed this revolutionary concept, overcoming technical problems as he worked towards the prototype stage. Various potential applications of the principle were cancelled in the light of changing operational requirements and increasing costs. Wallis continued to work on designs for high speed aeroplanes, eventually proposing the adoption of a rectangular fuselage as the most efficient form for hypersonic aircraft, as well as on a new form of submarine. He was knighted in 1968 and retired from Vickers in May 1971, by now the British Aircraft Corporation. He died on 30 October 1979 in Leatherhead Hospital.

Scope and Content
The fonds consists of biographical material (1901-1977) for example certificates, programmes, honours and awards, which reflect Sir Barnes Wallis' life, education and personal reminiscences. His work and research are reflected in official correspondence files and folders, minutes of meetings, reports, manuscript notes, calculations, working papers, printed material, photographs and design drawings. This material focuses on airships (1921-1929); the geodetic construction of aircraft (1930-1946); work on bombs, including dams, Highball, Card, Tallboy and big bomb developments, post war correspondence on dam raids (1939-1954); post war aircraft developments, including guided missiles, swing wing aircraft and supersonic and hypersonic flight (1944-1977); submarines (1946-1968); outside interests and consultancies, including cricket and golf balls (1936-1964), Isaac Newton and the optical telescope (1947-1955), Australian radio telescopes (1954-1963), the Central Electricity Generating Board (1962-1967), airship revival (1969-1972) and Messina Bridge (1971). The papers also include lectures, talks, participation in a British Broadcasting Company Television programme screened in 1967 covering Barnes Wallis' career and associated correspondence (1957-1972). Included is a series of patent files (1954-1968) and newspaper cuttings (1928-1978) containing, amongst others, articles about Barnes Wallis himself and his work on airships, dam busting, sinking of the battleship Tirpitz, the ten ton bomb, Swallow swing wing aircraft and Concorde. The series of technical drawings relates to airships (20 blueprints, dyelines and tracings, 1919-1929), variable geometry aircraft the Swallow (14 tracings and hand coloured dyelines, 1957-1959), Cascade (13 tracings and hand coloured dyelines, 1959-1960), aircraft with cambered and ducted wings (16 tracings and dyeline prints, c.1960), the universal aircraft (51 tracings, dyelines, some hand coloured and dyeline prints, 1967-1971), submarines (29 tracings and dyelines, 1965-1966) and work for outside consultancies (25 dyelines and tracings, 1947-c.1970). Photographic material in the collection comprises a series of personal and family photographs (182 black and white and colour prints and postcards, 1917-1977), technical photographs (725 black and white and colour prints, copies and postcards, 1913-1969) and 14 stereoscopic slides of the construction of the R100 in a shed at Howden, Yorkshire, 1928-1929. The series dealing with work on bombs includes publicity and printed material relating to the Dam Busters, including printed histories, annotated film script and publicity material (1943-1972).
Extent
18.00 metres (109 boxes and 10 large format items); 2 plan press drawers (1.44 metres per drawer)
Language
English
Archival history
Barnes Neville Wallis decided to donate his extensive collection of scientific papers to the Science Museum Library in December 1977, to make his work “freely available for public use and research in the context of the national museum of sciences and technology”. The Library received the collection in 1979, a few months before Barnes Wallis’ death, and decided to deposit his collection of films at the National Film Archive, now known as the BFI National Archive. Selected items from Barnes Wallis’ study were also given to the Science Museum and were held at the Museum’s annex at Hayes. The intention was to create a reconstruction of Barnes Wallis’ study at the Science Museum, though it was ultimately decided that there were insufficient contents to do this accurately. Preliminary sorting and listing of the material began in 1979 and continued over a number of years, before being completed in July 1987. That same month the Science Museum received confirmation from the Ministry of Defence that all formerly classified papers in the collection, with the exception of a few related to Barnes Wallis’ jet-propelled submarine design, were now unclassified and suitable for public access. The Science Museum Library held an exhibition in September 1987 to mark the centenary of Barnes Wallis’ birth, drawing on the final collection listing as well as other items held by the Science Museum. The contents of Barnes Wallis’ office, along with his personal collection of books and surplus papers were returned to the Wallis family in April 1992, to be displayed at the Barnes Wallis Memorial Museum which was at that time being established at the Yorkshire Air Museum in Elvington.
Level of description
TOP
Repository name
Science Museum, London
Conditions governing access
Open Access
Conditions governing Reproduction
Copies may be supplied in accordance with current copyright legislation and Science Museum Group terms and conditions
External document
Collection Contents List
System of arrangement
The files were grouped in 19 series, numbered alpha-numerically, according to subject areas. Original numbering sequences where evident, were maintained in the order of the files. Where no such sequence was evident, the order was decided by the archivist.