Barnes Neville Wallis was born 26 September 1887 the son of Charles George Wallis and Edith Eyre Ashby. He married Mary Frances Bloxam in 1925 and they had two sons and two daughters. Wallis left school at sixteen with no qualifications, and began working in shipyards. In 1913 he moved to Vickers-Armstrongs Limited to design airships. By 1930 Wallis was working on planes. He is remembered for designing the bouncing bombs used to attack the German dams at Eder and Mohne. After the Dambusters raid in 1943, Wallis moved on to design much bigger bombs such as the Tallboy and the ten-ton Grand Slam bomb. After World War II Wallis led aeronautical research and development at the British Aircraft Corporation until 1971. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1954 and was knighted in 1968. Wallis died 30 October 1979.