Barnes Wallis

Sir Barnes Neville Wallis CBE FRS RDI FRAeS , was an English scientist, engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley during World War II. The raid was the subject of the 1955 film The Dam Busters, in which Wallis was played by Michael Redgrave. Among his other inventions were the geodetic airframe and the earthquake bomb.

Barnes Wallis was born in Ripley, Derbyshire and educated at Christs Hospital in Horsham and Haberdashers Askes Hatcham Boys Grammar School in South East London, leaving school at seventeen to start work in January 1905 at Thames Engineering Works at Blackheath, southeast London. He subsequently changed his apprenticeship to J. Samuel Whites, the shipbuilders based at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. He originally trained as a marine engineer and in 1922 he took a degree in engineering via the University of London External Programme.

Source: Wikipedia