Photo Gallery
Above is a family picture from Barnes Wallis' childhood. Point the cursor over the people in the picture to find out who they are and read on to find out more.
Charles Wallis, father
Charles' childhood was mainly spent away at school. His mother had died only a week after his birth and he was ignored by his father who viewed him as her murderer. At the age of twenty-two, while he was studying to be a doctor at Merton College, Oxford, he first met his fiancee Edith Ashby. Four years later, after he had qualified, they got married and had four children.
Edith Wallis nee Ashby, mother
Edith lost her father at the age of four and soon after his death she and her mother moved in with her older sister Lily, who had married well. She was also twenty-two when she first met Charles Wallis. Edith loved her children, and was especially devoted to Barnes who was distraught when she died in August 1911.
John Wallis, brother
John was the eldest brother of Barnes and was born on 16th June 1886, a year earlier than Barnes. He also gained a scholarship at Christ's Hospital and eventually married and had children. He also went into the church and became the canon of Lichfield Cathedral.
Barnes is pictured in the photo above at the age of about nine or ten.
Annie Wallis, sister
As opposed to the information given in J. E. Morpurgo's biography, Barnes' sister was actually christened Annie, rather than Anne, and was born on 28th June 1893. Annie trained to be a nurse, married William Edward Knight and had four children, two of which survived. She spent a lot of time in India and lived to the ripe old age of ninety-six.
Charles Wallis, brother
Charles was four or five years younger than Annie and is therefore not pictured above. He spent most of his life in the Services, including the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. Unfortunately, he met a tragic death at Tintagel, Cornwall, in 1962, when he jumped in to save someone from drowning, but neither survived. Annie was on holiday in Cornwall at the time and only heard of the incident when she read about it in the newspaper.
Above is a picture of Barnes with all his children and grandchildren.