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Address: 3 Station Road,
Pannal,
HARROGATE,
N.YORKS.
Tel: 01423 871909
Email: Chairman@barneswallistrust.org
 BARNES
WALLIS
GENIUS OF OUR
TIME
From Airships to Swing-wings via the Wellington bomber and the Dam busters raid. The link is Barnes Wallis. His reputation suffers from being dominated by the so-called "bouncing bomb" but there was much more to his inventive mind. Indeed it could be argued that the "bouncing bomb" was not even his most important contribution to the war effort let alone his earlier and later works. He made his name with his design of the R100 airship in the 1920s. This was built at Howden in Yorkshire and this is why the Barnes Wallis Memorial Trust was formed there.
We are a Registered Charity and are very pleased to have the active support of Sir Barnes’ family.
The Trust was formed in 1986 at Howden following an initiative by some local residents who realised that many people living in Howden were not aware that early in his career Barnes Wallis had lived in the area while he was responsible for the design and construction of the R100 airship. We are keen to make people aware that there was a lot more to BNW’s work than the “bouncing bomb”.
Trustees include representatives from Sir Barnes Wallis’ family, Howden Town Council, Howden Civic Society and Hull University as well as independent trustees.
We have educational activities at Howden School and Hull University and we sponsor one of the awards at Engineering Inspirations run by the North Yorkshire Business and Education partnership. This is an annual event that is both a competition and a celebration of work done by school students in the fields of maths, science, technology and engineering.
A new venture which we wish to start shortly is to issue a journal/newsletter twice a year with articles by various people about different aspects of Barnes Wallis’ work. The purpopse is twofold: to make people more aware of his work and to raise some money. Subscriptions are £10 per year and if you wish to subscribe please send £10 to Gerry Carroll, Orchard House, South Duffield, SELBY, N. YORKS, YO8 6SX. We would also welcome contributions of articles. We are assuming that our readers will be well aware of the general story about the Dams Raid so we are looking for articles on points of detail; articles from a personal perspective and the unusual as well as other aspects of Barnes Wallis’ work.
For some 15 years we had an exhibition within the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington, near York. That arrangement has come to an end and we are now looking for a new home. One of our ambitions is to establish a Barnes Wallis Education Centre that would use Barnes Wallis’ work as an inspiration to potential young engineers. In partnership with others we would like to become a focal point for the whole range of Barnes Wallis’ work partly by seeking to borrow from National Museums such as the RAF Museum and the Science Museum the many Barnes Wallis related artefacts that they own but do not have room to put on public exhibition, and to put these on show with our own material. We have a preference for staying in the North of England because there are so many local connections: Born at Ripley in Derbyshire, worked at Barrow in Furness in WWI, Howden in the late 1920s, 617 Squadron in Lincolnshire, Dambuster training in Derwent Valley, Tallboy bomb castings in Sheffield, Wellington Bombers built at Chester and Blackpool.
Registered Charity No. 518023
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