Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (1887 – 1979) – British engineer and inventor

 With thanks to The Reverend Nicholas Pye for discovery of this information

Barnes Wallis was born in Ripley, Derbyshire, UK  on 26th September 1887. His parents were General Practitioner Charles George Wallis (1859–1945) and his wife Edith Eyre (1859–1911), who was the daughter of Rev. John Ashby. The Wallis family went to live in New Cross in South London, living in "straitened, genteel circumstances" after Charles Wallis was crippled by polio in 1893. 

Barnes was educated at Christ's Hospital in Horsham and Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Boys' Grammar School in southeast London, leaving school at seventeen to start work in January 1905 at Thames Engineering Works at Blackheath in southeast London. He then went as an apprentice to J. Samuel White's, 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.

Barnes was briefly involved in the First World War. He attempted to join the Royal Navy as an engine room artificer and later the Army (including the Artists' Rifles). He received a temporary commission as a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) and served with the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) helping develop military airships.

However, as the British Admiralty initially halted airship work, he and his colleagues were soon recalled by the War Office to resume vital civilian design work on military airships. Throughout the war, he worked as an aeronautical engineer for Vickers, helping design rigid airships for the war effort. R9 airship and later became heavily engrossed in designing the advanced R80 rigid airship toward the end of the conflict.

Barnes was chief assistant on the design of the British R9 airship and was then involved in designing the advanced R80 rigid airship toward the end of the conflict.

After a long and illustrious carrer – particularly during the Second World War - Barnes died on 30th Octobewr 1979.

Initial source: https://x.com/RevdPye

Additional information from Wikipedia.