Correspondence regarding Barnes Wallis' biography, Jan 1972

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.

Jack Eric Morpurgo was born in London on April 26 1918. He won a place at Christ's Hospital. Morpurgo always felt that he owed the school a great debt for the excellent start he had been given in life. After school, Morpurgo attended the University of North Brunswick in Canada, which he described as "Hell without possible hope of redemption". He transferred to the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, in the United States, which he much preferred and where he read American History and Literature. In 1938 he became the college's first graduate from England since the American Revolution.

Although initially tempted to become a conscientious objector, Morpurgo enlisted in the Royal Artillery in 1939, subsequently seeing action as a regimental and staff officer in India, the Middle East, Greece and Italy. In 1946 he joined Penguin Books, where he worked as an editor until 1967. Whilst working at Penguin Books, Morpurgo answered an advertisement in The Times for a director for a national cultural institution. The position turned out to be with the National Book League (now called the Book Trust), and he was appointed Director-General. Morpurgo approached the job with tremendous zest and enthusiasm. His initiatives included setting up book-related exhibitions; raising extra funds through the sale of rare books presented by authors; persuading local housing authorities to make as much room for books in alcoves as for refrigerators; and encouraging the establishment of reference libraries in factories and offices. Behind all these ventures lay his conviction that his mission was as much - perhaps more - to non-readers as to readers.

During his time at the National Book League, Morpurgo held a number of other jobs. At the request of Unesco he served as an emissary for British books in Africa and Asia. He also worked for the Nuffield Foundation, and appeared on the BBC radio programme Transatlantic Quiz. From 1950 onwards Morpurgo held visiting professorships at universities all over the world, including Michigan State, Geneva and Berlin. Morpurgo left the National Book League in 1969 and was subsequently appointed Professor of American Literature at Leeds University. His own books include 'The History of the United States' (1955), 'The Road to Athens' (1963), 'Barnes Wallis' (1972) and 'Christ's Hospital: An Introductory History' (1991), as well as his own autobiography 'Master of None' (1990).

But when Morpurgo wanted to send his own sons there, he was told that he had too much money. This did nothing to lessen his admiration for his old school, and in 1991 he published Christ's Hospital: An Introductory History.

Morpurgo married Catherine Noel Kippe and they had three sons and a daughter, including the author and poet Michael Morpurgo. Although he was blind for the last 15 years of his life, Morpurgo's love of books remained undiminished: every wall in his house was lined with them. Morpurgo died on 2 October 2000.