165-601: The British Imperial Airship Scheme was a project conceived in 1924 to improve communication and provide transportation between Great Britain and distant countries of the vast British Empire by establishing regular air service using passenger airships . The first phase was the construction of two large and technically advanced airships, the R100 and the R101 ; the R100 made a successful transatlantic trial flight to Canada and back during
330-399: A depth charge , with the surrounding water concentrating the force of the explosion on the target. A crucial innovation was to spin the bomb. The spin direction determined the number of bounces/range of the bomb. A change to backspin (rather than top-spin), was put forward by another Vickers designer, George Edwards, based on his knowledge as a cricketer. Spin caused the bomb to trail behind
495-471: A contest of ideologies between the two nations. It was not only Britain's position on the world stage that was at risk: Napoleon threatened to invade Britain itself, just as his armies had overrun many countries of continental Europe . The Napoleonic Wars were therefore ones in which Britain invested large amounts of capital and resources to win. French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy , which won
660-492: A cruising speed of 63 mph (101 km/h). Acceptance of the airships was conditional upon the completion of a flight testing programme which would culminate in a flight to India, with a stop in Egypt for refuelling. A further requirement was that both had to conform to an as-yet undeveloped formula for airframe strength. The R100 was designed by Barnes Wallis , with Nevil Shute Norway as Chief Calculator, responsible for all
825-629: A decisive victory over a French Imperial Navy - Spanish Navy fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Overseas colonies were attacked and occupied, including those of the Netherlands, which was annexed by Napoleon in 1810. France was finally defeated by a coalition of European armies in 1815. Britain was again the beneficiary of peace treaties: France ceded the Ionian Islands , Malta (which it had occupied in 1798), Mauritius , St Lucia ,
990-719: A dependency of the New South Wales colony. From 16 June 1840 New South Wales laws applied in New Zealand. This transitional arrangement ended with the Charter for Erecting the Colony of New Zealand on 16 November 1840. The Charter stated that New Zealand would be established as a separate Crown colony on 3 May 1841 with Hobson as its governor. During the 19th century, Britain and the Russian Empire vied to fill
1155-623: A form that attempted to be more inclusive by showcasing the empire as a family of newly birthed nations with common roots. The last decades of the 19th century saw concerted political campaigns for Irish home rule . Ireland had been united with Britain into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the Act of Union 1800 after the Irish Rebellion of 1798 , and had suffered a severe famine between 1845 and 1852. Home rule
1320-507: A hastily issued Certificate of Airworthiness , R101 set off to make its proving flight to India under unfavourable weather conditions. After seven hours in the air, R101 crashed into a hill and caught fire near Beauvais in northern France, killing 48 of the 54 aboard, including Lord Thomson and V. C. Richmond. The exact cause is still a matter of dispute amongst airship enthusiasts and historians. Sir Peter Masefield lists thirteen factors in his detailed history of R101: without any one of them
1485-590: A marine engineer and in 1922 he took a degree in engineering via the University of London External Programme . Wallis left J. Samuel White's in 1913 when an opportunity arose for him as an aircraft designer , at first working on airships and later aeroplanes . He joined Vickers – later part of Vickers-Armstrongs and then part of the British Aircraft Corporation – and worked for them until his retirement in 1971. There he worked on
1650-588: A minor settlement, and other treaty ports including Shanghai . During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the British Crown began to assume an increasingly large role in the affairs of the company. A series of Acts of Parliament were passed, including the Regulating Act of 1773 , Pitt's India Act of 1784 and the Charter Act of 1813 which regulated the company's affairs and established
1815-504: A new larger shed at Cardington, and so in August 1930 a decision was made to construct two airships, R102 and R103, of 7,500,000 cubic feet (210,000 m) capacity. It was expected that these would be capable of carrying 50 passengers and ten tons of cargo for 4,000 mi (6,400 km). Starting in 1931, it was proposed to run services from Cardington to Karachi and Montreal using R100 and R101 (which would also be lengthened). In 1934
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#17327725142291980-558: A perceived violation of the guaranteed Rights of Englishmen . The American Revolution began with a rejection of Parliamentary authority and moves towards self-government. In response, Britain sent troops to reimpose direct rule, leading to the outbreak of war in 1775. The following year, in 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence proclaiming the colonies' sovereignty from
2145-472: A rapid escalation in the number of slaves transported. British ships carried a third of all slaves shipped across the Atlantic—approximately 3.5 million Africans —until the abolition of the trade by Parliament in 1807 (see § Abolition of slavery ). To facilitate the shipment of slaves, forts were established on the coast of West Africa, such as James Island , Accra and Bunce Island . In
2310-536: A security threat to Great Britain or mark the beginning of the break-up of the empire. A second Home Rule bill was defeated for similar reasons. A third bill was passed by Parliament in 1914, but not implemented because of the outbreak of the First World War leading to the 1916 Easter Rising . By the turn of the 20th century, fears had begun to grow in Britain that it would no longer be able to defend
2475-848: A series of Anglo-Mysore wars in Southern India with the Sultanate of Mysore under Hyder Ali and then Tipu Sultan . Defeats in the First Anglo-Mysore war and stalemate in the Second were followed by victories in the Third and the Fourth . Following Tipu Sultan's death in the fourth war in the Siege of Seringapatam (1799) , the kingdom became a protectorate of the company. The East India Company fought three Anglo-Maratha Wars with
2640-547: A single flight of around 17 hours was made. One of the engines failed during this flight and so it was not possible to carry out a full-speed trial: during previous flights R101 had been flown with only four engines available for forward propulsion, the fifth engine being used solely for reverse thrust when mooring. For the October 1930 flights, all five engines were used for forward propulsion, two being modified so that they could also provide reverse thrust. On 4 October 1930, with
2805-467: A son of Marie Stopes . His son Christopher Loudon Wallis was instrumental in the restoration of the watermill and its building on the Stanway Estate near Cheltenham , Gloucestershire. Wallis was a vegetarian and an advocate of animal rights . He became a vegetarian at age 73. In the 1955 film The Dam Busters , Wallis was played by Michael Redgrave . Wallis's daughter Elisabeth played
2970-464: A supersonic development of Wild Goose, designed in the mid-1950s, which could have been developed for either military or civil applications. Both Wild Goose and Swallow were flight tested as large (30 ft span) flying scale models, based at Predannack in Cornwall. However, despite promising wind tunnel and model work, his designs were not adopted. Government funding for "Swallow" was cancelled in
3135-629: A watching brief on overseas developments. Grounded since the loss of R101, the R100 was scrapped in December 1931. Proposals for the planned R102, R103 and R104 were abandoned. The loss of R101, the deepening world depression , and doubts about the optimistic financial forecasts, were all factors in these decisions. Air routes to the Empire were instead pioneered by Imperial Airways starting in 1929, initially using flying boats and later landplanes. British Empire The British Empire comprised
3300-675: A way station for its ships travelling to and from its colonies in the East Indies . Britain formally acquired the colony, and its large Afrikaner (or Boer ) population in 1806, having occupied it in 1795 to prevent its falling into French hands during the Flanders Campaign . British immigration to the Cape Colony began to rise after 1820, and pushed thousands of Boers , resentful of British rule, northwards to found their own—mostly short-lived— independent republics , during
3465-561: Is now buried at the local St. Lawrence Church together with his wife. His epitaph in Latin reads "Spernit Humum Fugiente Penna" ( Severed from the earth with fleeting wing ), a quotation from Horace Ode III.2 . They had four children – Barnes (1926–2008), Mary (1927–2019), Elisabeth (b. 1933) and Christopher (1935–2006) – and also adopted Molly's sister's children John and Robert McCormick when their parents were killed in an air raid. His daughter Mary Eyre Wallis later married Harry Stopes-Roe ,
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#17327725142293630-593: Is portrayed as a British engineer in an alternate history , where the First World War does not end in 1918, and Wallis concentrates his energies on developing a machine for time travel . As a consequence, it is the Germans who develop the bouncing bomb . His character and the Second World War research lab are featured in the mystery British television series Foyle's War ( Series four, part 2 ). In Scarlet Traces: The Great Game by Ian Edginton , he
3795-454: Is responsible for the development of the Cavorite weapon used to win the war on Mars after the departure of Cavor . The Science Museum at Wroughton , near Swindon, holds 105 boxes of papers of Barnes Wallis. The papers comprise design notes, photographs, calculations, correspondence and reports relating to Wallis's work on airships, including the R100; geodetic construction of aircraft;
3960-561: Is seen by some historians as the event defining the transition between the first and second empires, in which Britain shifted its attention away from the Americas to Asia, the Pacific and later Africa. Adam Smith 's Wealth of Nations , published in 1776, had argued that colonies were redundant, and that free trade should replace the old mercantilist policies that had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, dating back to
4125-725: The Acts of Union 1707 . The 18th century saw the newly united Great Britain rise to be the world's dominant colonial power, with France becoming its main rival on the imperial stage. Great Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire continued the War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted until 1714 and was concluded by the Treaty of Utrecht . Philip V of Spain renounced his and his descendants' claim to
4290-671: The American War of Independence towards the end of the 18th century, has been referred to by some historians as the "First British Empire". England's early efforts at colonisation in the Americas met with mixed success. An attempt to establish a colony in Guiana in 1604 lasted only two years and failed in its main objective to find gold deposits. Colonies on the Caribbean islands of St Lucia (1605) and Grenada (1609) rapidly folded. The first permanent English settlement in
4455-858: The Americas and Asia . A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left Britain the dominant colonial power in North America . Britain became a major power in the Indian subcontinent after the East India Company 's conquest of Mughal Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The American War of Independence resulted in Britain losing some of its oldest and most populous colonies in North America by 1783. While retaining control of British North America (now Canada ) and territories in and near
4620-558: The Battle of Vimy Ridge in a similar light. The important contribution of the Dominions to the war effort was recognised in 1917 by British prime minister David Lloyd George when he invited each of the Dominion prime ministers to join an Imperial War Cabinet to co-ordinate imperial policy. Barnes Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis CBE FRS RDI FRAeS (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979)
4785-707: The British economy . Added to this was the cost of suppressing regular slave rebellions . With support from the British abolitionist movement, Parliament enacted the Slave Trade Act in 1807, which abolished the slave trade in the empire. In 1808, Sierra Leone Colony was designated an official British colony for freed slaves. Parliamentary reform in 1832 saw the influence of the West India Committee decline. The Slavery Abolition Act , passed
4950-860: The Caribbean in the British West Indies , British colonial expansion turned towards Asia, Africa , and the Pacific . After the defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century and expanded its imperial holdings. It pursued trade concessions in China and Japan, and territory in Southeast Asia . The " Great Game " and " Scramble for Africa " also ensued. The period of relative peace (1815–1914) during which
5115-809: The First Anglo-Afghan War was a disaster for Britain. When Russia invaded the Ottoman Balkans in 1853, fears of Russian dominance in the Mediterranean and the Middle East led Britain and France to enter the war in support of the Ottoman Empire and invade the Crimean Peninsula to destroy Russian naval capabilities. The ensuing Crimean War (1854–1856), which involved new techniques of modern warfare ,
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5280-683: The Government of India Act 1858 , establishing the British Raj , where an appointed governor-general administered India and Queen Victoria was crowned the Empress of India . India became the empire's most valuable possession, "the Jewel in the Crown", and was the most important source of Britain's strength. A series of serious crop failures in the late 19th century led to widespread famines on
5445-874: The Great Trek of the late 1830s and early 1840s. In the process the Voortrekkers clashed repeatedly with the British, who had their own agenda with regard to colonial expansion in South Africa and to the various native African polities, including those of the Sotho people and the Zulu Kingdom . Eventually, the Boers established two republics that had a longer lifespan: the South African Republic or Transvaal Republic (1852–1877; 1881–1902) and
5610-658: The Khedivate of Egypt into the 20th century, it was officially a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire and not part of the British Empire. The French were still majority shareholders and attempted to weaken the British position, but a compromise was reached with the 1888 Convention of Constantinople , which made the Canal officially neutral territory. With competitive French, Belgian and Portuguese activity in
5775-594: The Mahdist Army in 1896 and rebuffed an attempted French invasion at Fashoda in 1898. Sudan was nominally made an Anglo-Egyptian condominium , but a British colony in reality. British gains in Southern and East Africa prompted Cecil Rhodes , pioneer of British expansion in Southern Africa , to urge a " Cape to Cairo " railway linking the strategically important Suez Canal to the mineral-rich south of
5940-639: The Maratha Confederacy . The First Anglo-Maratha War ended in 1782 with a restoration of the pre-war status quo . The Second and Third Anglo-Maratha wars resulted in British victories. After the surrender of Peshwa Bajirao II on 1818, the East India Company acquired control of a large majority of the Indian subcontinent. Britain was challenged again by France under Napoleon, in a struggle that, unlike previous wars, represented
6105-542: The Middle East . Increasing degrees of autonomy were granted to its white settler colonies , some of which were formally reclassified as Dominions by the 1920s. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britain's economic lead. Military, economic and colonial tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War , during which Britain relied heavily on its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on its military, financial, and manpower resources. Although
6270-409: The Orange Free State (1854–1902). In 1902 Britain occupied both republics, concluding a treaty with the two Boer Republics following the Second Boer War (1899–1902). In 1869 the Suez Canal opened under Napoleon III , linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean . Initially the Canal was opposed by the British; but once opened, its strategic value was quickly recognised and became
6435-416: The R102 would enter service, and in 1935 the R103 would be added. The four airships would offer monthly return services to Montreal and Karachi, and a weekly service to Ismailia in Egypt. A service to Australia was to start in 1936, and an even larger airship, the R104, was proposed. However, on 31 August 1931, the Cabinet decided to abandon British airship development, although Cardington would still keep
6600-411: The Royal African Company was granted a monopoly on the supply of slaves to the British colonies in the Caribbean. The company would transport more slaves across the Atlantic than any other, and significantly grew England's share of the trade, from 33 per cent in 1673 to 74 per cent in 1683. The removal of this monopoly between 1688 and 1712 allowed independent British slave traders to thrive, leading to
6765-500: The Saint John and Saint Croix river valleys, then part of Nova Scotia , felt too far removed from the provincial government in Halifax , so London split off New Brunswick as a separate colony in 1784. The Constitutional Act of 1791 created the provinces of Upper Canada (mainly English speaking ) and Lower Canada (mainly French-speaking ) to defuse tensions between the French and British communities, and implemented governmental systems similar to those employed in Britain, with
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6930-443: The Seychelles , and Tobago ; Spain ceded Trinidad ; the Netherlands ceded Guiana , Ceylon and the Cape Colony , while the Danish ceded Heligoland . Britain returned Guadeloupe , Martinique , French Guiana , and Réunion to France; Menorca to Spain; Danish West Indies to Denmark and Java and Suriname to the Netherlands. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution , goods produced by slavery became less important to
7095-482: The TFX programme and the General Dynamics F-111 . In the UK, Vickers submitted a wing-controlled aerodyne for specification OR.346 for a reconnaissance/strike-fighter-bomber, effectively the TSR-2 specification with added fighter capability. When Maurice Brennan left Vickers for Folland he worked on the FO.147, a variable-sweep development of the Gnat lightweight fighter-trainer, offering both tailed and tailless options. Wallis's ideas were ultimately passed over in
7260-441: The Treaty of Paris of 1763 had important consequences for the future of the British Empire. In North America, France's future as a colonial power effectively ended with the recognition of British claims to Rupert's Land, and the ceding of New France to Britain (leaving a sizeable French-speaking population under British control) and Louisiana to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain. Along with its victory over France in India,
7425-467: The V-3 supergun bunker, submarine pens and other reinforced structures, large civil constructions such as viaducts and bridges, as well as the German battleship Tirpitz . They were the forerunners of modern bunker-busting bombs . Having been dispersed with the Design Office from Brooklands to the nearby Burhill Golf Club in Hersham , after the Vickers factory was badly bombed in September 1940, Wallis returned to Brooklands in November 1945 as head of
7590-417: The Victorian gold rush , making its capital Melbourne for a time the richest city in the world. The British also expanded their mercantile interests in the North Pacific. Spain and Britain had become rivals in the area, culminating in the Nootka Crisis in 1789. Both sides mobilised for war, but when France refused to support Spain it was forced to back down, leading to the Nootka Convention . The outcome
7755-454: The War of 1812 , and invaded Canadian territory. In response, Britain invaded the US, but the pre-war boundaries were reaffirmed by the 1814 Treaty of Ghent , ensuring Canada's future would be separate from that of the United States. Since 1718, transportation to the American colonies had been a penalty for various offences in Britain, with approximately one thousand convicts transported per year. Forced to find an alternative location after
7920-515: The Wellesley , the Wellington and the later Warwick and Windsor all employed Wallis's geodetic design in the fuselage and wing structures. The Wellington had one of the most robust airframes ever developed, and pictures of its skeleton largely shot away, but still sound enough to bring its crew home safely, are still impressive. The geodetic construction offered a light and strong airframe (compared to conventional designs), with clearly defined space within for fuel tanks, payload and so on. However
8085-399: The dominions , colonies , protectorates , mandates , and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was the largest empire in history and, for a century, was
8250-400: The earthquake bomb , including designs such as the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs. Barnes Wallis was born in Ripley , Derbyshire , to general practitioner Charles George Wallis (1859–1945) and his wife Edith Eyre (1859–1911), daughter of Rev. John Ashby. The Wallis family subsequently moved to New Cross , south London, living in "straitened, genteel circumstances" after Charles Wallis
8415-545: The metropole and the entirety of the empire while at the same time maintaining the policy of "splendid isolation". Germany was rapidly rising as a military and industrial power and was now seen as the most likely opponent in any future war. Recognising that it was overstretched in the Pacific and threatened at home by the Imperial German Navy , Britain formed an alliance with Japan in 1902 and with its old enemies France and Russia in 1904 and 1907, respectively. Britain's fears of war with Germany were realised in 1914 with
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#17327725142298580-413: The privateers John Hawkins and Francis Drake to engage in slave-raiding attacks against Spanish and Portuguese ships off the coast of West Africa with the aim of establishing an Atlantic slave trade . This effort was rebuffed and later, as the Anglo-Spanish Wars intensified, Elizabeth I gave her blessing to further privateering raids against Spanish ports in the Americas and shipping that
8745-440: The protectionism of Spain and Portugal. The growth of trade between the newly independent United States and Britain after 1783 seemed to confirm Smith's view that political control was not necessary for economic success. The war to the south influenced British policy in Canada, where between 40,000 and 100,000 defeated Loyalists had migrated from the new United States following independence. The 14,000 Loyalists who went to
8910-399: The spice trade of the East Indies archipelago to the Netherlands and the textiles industry of India to England, but textiles soon overtook spices in terms of profitability. Peace between England and the Netherlands in 1688 meant the two countries entered the Nine Years' War as allies, but the conflict—waged in Europe and overseas between France, Spain and the Anglo-Dutch alliance—left
9075-402: The swing-wing functional. He developed the wing-controlled aerodyne , a concept for a tailless aeroplane controlled entirely by wing movement with no separate control surfaces. His " Wild Goose ", designed in the late 1940s, was intended to use laminar flow , and alongside it he also worked on the Green Lizard cruise missile and the Heston JC.9 manned experimental aeroplane. The " Swallow " was
9240-472: The "Burney scheme" after its creator Dennistoun Burney , it involved the construction of six airships at an estimated cost of £4 million, to be built and operated by Vickers. £1.2 million would be raised by the issue of shares paying 6% per annum, and a further £2.2 million by the issue of debentures . Both would be guaranteed by the British government and by India and Australia, the total public liability being estimated at £119,000 per annum. The Burney Scheme
9405-475: The "Sugar Revolution" transformed the Caribbean economy in the mid-17th century. Large sugarcane plantations were first established in the 1640s on Barbados, with assistance from Dutch merchants and Sephardic Jews fleeing Portuguese Brazil . At first, sugar was grown primarily using white indentured labour , but rising costs soon led English traders to embrace the use of imported African slaves. The enormous wealth generated by slave-produced sugar made Barbados
9570-480: The "jugular vein of the Empire". In 1875, the Conservative government of Benjamin Disraeli bought the indebted Egyptian ruler Isma'il Pasha 's 44 per cent shareholding in the Suez Canal for £4 million (equivalent to £480 million in 2023). Although this did not grant outright control of the strategic waterway, it did give Britain leverage. Joint Anglo-French financial control over Egypt ended in outright British occupation in 1882. Although Britain controlled
9735-428: The 1730s. This trade, illegal since it was outlawed by China in 1729, helped reverse the trade imbalances resulting from the British imports of tea, which saw large outflows of silver from Britain to China. In 1839, the confiscation by the Chinese authorities at Canton of 20,000 chests of opium led Britain to attack China in the First Opium War , and resulted in the seizure by Britain of Hong Kong Island , at that time
9900-444: The 1950s and 1960s, including research into supersonic aerodynamics that contributed to the design of Concorde , before finally closing by 1980. This unique structure was restored at Brooklands Museum thanks to a grant from the AIM-Biffa fund in 2013 and was officially reopened by Mary Stopes-Roe , Barnes Wallis's daughter, on 13 March 2014. Although he did not invent the concept, Wallis did much pioneering engineering work to make
10065-457: The Admiralty's first rigid airship HMA No. 9r under H. B. Pratt , helping to nurse it though its political stop-go career and protracted development. The first airship of his own design, the R80 , incorporated many technical innovations and flew in 1920. By the time he came to design the R100 , the airship for which he is best known, in 1930 he had developed his revolutionary geodetic construction (also known as geodesic), which he applied to
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#173277251422910230-531: The Americas the following year but did not return; it is unknown what happened to his ships. No further attempts to establish English colonies in the Americas were made until well into the reign of Queen Elizabeth I , during the last decades of the 16th century. In the meantime, Henry VIII 's 1533 Statute in Restraint of Appeals had declared "that this realm of England is an Empire". The Protestant Reformation turned England and Catholic Spain into implacable enemies. In 1562, Elizabeth I encouraged
10395-414: The Americas was founded in 1607 in Jamestown by Captain John Smith , and managed by the Virginia Company ; the Crown took direct control of the venture in 1624, thereby founding the Colony of Virginia . Bermuda was settled and claimed by England as a result of the 1609 shipwreck of the Virginia Company's flagship , while attempts to settle Newfoundland were largely unsuccessful. In 1620, Plymouth
10560-479: The British Caribbean, the percentage of the population of African descent rose from 25 per cent in 1650 to around 80 per cent in 1780, and in the Thirteen Colonies from 10 per cent to 40 per cent over the same period (the majority in the southern colonies). The transatlantic slave trade played a pervasive role in British economic life, and became a major economic mainstay for western port cities. Ships registered in Bristol , Liverpool and London were responsible for
10725-443: The British Empire as the new United States of America . The entry of French and Spanish forces into the war tipped the military balance in the Americans' favour and after a decisive defeat at Yorktown in 1781, Britain began negotiating peace terms. American independence was acknowledged at the Peace of Paris in 1783. The loss of such a large portion of British America , at the time Britain's most populous overseas possession,
10890-416: The British Empire became the global hegemon was later described as Pax Britannica (Latin for "British Peace"). Alongside the formal control that Britain exerted over its colonies, its dominance of much of world trade, and of its oceans, meant that it effectively controlled the economies of, and readily enforced its interests in, many regions , such as Asia and Latin America . It also came to dominate
11055-425: The British defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, left the British East India Company in control of Bengal and as a major military and political power in India. France was left control of its enclaves but with military restrictions and an obligation to support British client states , ending French hopes of controlling India. In the following decades the British East India Company gradually increased
11220-452: The English a stronger colonial power than the Dutch, who were forced to devote a larger proportion of their military budget to the costly land war in Europe. The death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and his bequeathal of Spain and its colonial empire to Philip V of Spain , a grandson of the King of France , raised the prospect of the unification of France, Spain and their respective colonies, an unacceptable state of affairs for England and
11385-462: The French throne, and Spain lost its empire in Europe. The British Empire was territorially enlarged: from France, Britain gained Newfoundland and Acadia , and from Spain, Gibraltar and Menorca . Gibraltar became a critical naval base and allowed Britain to control the Atlantic entry and exit point to the Mediterranean . Spain ceded the rights to the lucrative asiento (permission to sell African slaves in Spanish America ) to Britain. With
11550-399: The Māori population. The UK government finally decided to act, dispatching Captain William Hobson with instructions to take formal possession after obtaining native consent. There was no central Māori authority able to represent all New Zealand so, on 6 February 1840, Hobson and many Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in the Bay of Islands; most other chiefs signing in stages over
11715-414: The Netherlands as a colonial power, in the short term the Netherlands' more advanced financial system and the three Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th century left it with a stronger position in Asia. Hostilities ceased after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when the Dutch William of Orange ascended the English throne, bringing peace between the Dutch Republic and England. A deal between the two nations left
11880-468: The Pacific between 1769 and 1777, James Cook visited New Zealand . He was followed by an assortment of Europeans and Americans which including whalers, sealers, escaped convicts from New South Wales, missionaries and adventurers. Initially, contact with the indigenous Māori people was limited to the trading of goods, although interaction increased during the early decades of the 19th century with many trading and missionary stations being set up, especially in
12045-675: The Pacific for the extension of the North American fur trade . Alexander Mackenzie of the North West Company led the first, starting out in 1792, and a year later he became the first European to reach the Pacific overland north of the Rio Grande , reaching the ocean near present-day Bella Coola . This preceded the Lewis and Clark Expedition by twelve years. Shortly thereafter, Mackenzie's companion, John Finlay , founded
12210-851: The R100 was broken up following the crash near Beauvais in northern France of its "sister" ship, the R101 (which was designed and built by a team from the Government's Air Ministry). The later destruction of the Hindenburg led to the abandonment of airships as a mode of mass transport. By the time of the R101 crash, Wallis had moved to the Vickers aircraft factory at the Brooklands motor circuit and aerodrome between Byfleet and Weybridge in Surrey . The prewar aircraft designs of Rex Pierson ,
12375-415: The R101 was intended to act as a test-bed for innovative techniques in airship design. The two airships were soon referred to as the "Capitalist" ship (R100) and the "Socialist" ship (R101). Further airships would include the best features from both. Both airships were designed to the same technical specification, which required passenger accommodation for 100 and a fuel capacity adequate for 57 hours flight at
12540-671: The Royal Navy during the Seven Years' War, and the two continued to co-operate in arenas outside India: the eviction of the French from Egypt (1799), the capture of Java from the Netherlands (1811), the acquisition of Penang Island (1786), Singapore (1819) and Malacca (1824), and the defeat of Burma (1826). From its base in India, the company had been engaged in an increasingly profitable opium export trade to Qing China since
12705-573: The Seven Years' War therefore left Britain as the world's most powerful maritime power . During the 1760s and early 1770s, relations between the Thirteen Colonies and Britain became increasingly strained, primarily because of resentment of the British Parliament's attempts to govern and tax American colonists without their consent. This was summarised at the time by the colonists' slogan " No taxation without representation ",
12870-762: The Spanish, and in 1666 succeeded in colonising the Bahamas . In 1670, Charles II incorporated by royal charter the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), granting it a monopoly on the fur trade in the area known as Rupert's Land , which would later form a large proportion of the Dominion of Canada . Forts and trading posts established by the HBC were frequently the subject of attacks by the French, who had established their own fur trading colony in adjacent New France . Two years later,
13035-556: The UK in favour of the fixed-wing BAC TSR-2 and Concorde. He was critical of both, believing that swing-wing designs would have been more appropriate. In the mid-1960s, TSR-2 was ignominiously scrapped in favour of the American F-111, which had swing-wings influenced by Wallis's work at NASA, although this order was also subsequently cancelled. In the 1950s, Wallis developed an experimental rocket-propelled torpedo codenamed HEYDAY. It
13200-617: The United States, and suggested that Britain could dominate air travel by developing a small supersonic airliner capable of short take-off and landing . Wallis became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1945, was knighted in 1968, and received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1969. Wallis was awarded £10,000 for his war work from the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors . His grief at
13365-643: The Vickers-Armstrongs Research & Development Department which was based in the former motor circuit's 1907 clubhouse. Here he and his staff worked on many futuristic aerospace projects including supersonic flight and "swing-wing" technology (later used in the Panavia Tornado and other aircraft types). Following the high death toll of the aircrews involved in the Dambusters raid, he made a conscious effort never again to endanger
13530-697: The annexation of the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1664, following the capture of New Amsterdam , which was renamed New York . Although less financially successful than colonies in the Caribbean, these territories had large areas of good agricultural land and attracted far greater numbers of English emigrants, who preferred their temperate climates. The British West Indies initially provided England's most important and lucrative colonies. Settlements were successfully established in St. Kitts (1624), Barbados (1627) and Nevis (1628), but struggled until
13695-561: The apprenticeship system was abolished in 1838. The British government compensated slave-owners. Between 1815 and 1914, a period referred to as Britain's "imperial century" by some historians, around 10 million sq mi (26 million km ) of territory and roughly 400 million people were added to the British Empire. Victory over Napoleon left Britain without any serious international rival, other than Russia in Central Asia . Unchallenged at sea, Britain adopted
13860-528: The armies of the Dominions , as well as many thousands of volunteers from the Crown colonies. The contributions of Australian and New Zealand troops during the 1915 Gallipoli Campaign against the Ottoman Empire had a great impact on the national consciousness at home and marked a watershed in the transition of Australia and New Zealand from colonies to nations in their own right. The countries continue to commemorate this occasion on Anzac Day . Canadians viewed
14025-646: The bouncing bomb and deep penetration bombs; the "Wild Goose" and "Swallow" swing-wing aircraft; hypersonic aircraft designs and various outside contracts. Two boxes of records, containing copies of key aeronautical papers written between 1940 and 1958, are held at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge. Other Barnes Wallis papers are also held at Brooklands Museum , the Imperial War Museum , London, Newark Air Museum and
14190-589: The bulk of British slave trading. For the transported, harsh and unhygienic conditions on the slaving ships and poor diets meant that the average mortality rate during the Middle Passage was one in seven. At the end of the 16th century, England and the Dutch Empire began to challenge the Portuguese Empire 's monopoly of trade with Asia, forming private joint-stock companies to finance
14355-529: The business of establishing its own overseas colonies. The British Empire began to take shape during the early 17th century, with the English settlement of North America and the smaller islands of the Caribbean, and the establishment of joint-stock companies , most notably the East India Company , to administer colonies and overseas trade. This period, until the loss of the Thirteen Colonies after
14520-571: The camera technician in the water tank sequence. Wallis and his development of the bouncing bomb are mentioned by Charles Gray in the 1969 film Mosquito Squadron . Wallis appears as a fictionalised character in Stephen Baxter 's The Time Ships (though its birthdate is not the same, 1883 instead of 1887, since he says he was eight when the Time Traveller first used his machine), the authorised sequel to The Time Machine . He
14685-599: The coasts of Africa and Brazil to China , and France had begun to settle the Saint Lawrence River area, later to become New France . Although England tended to trail behind Portugal, Spain, and France in establishing overseas colonies, it carried out its first modern colonisation, referred to as the Munster Plantations , in 16th century Ireland by settling it with English and Welsh Protestant settlers. England had already colonised part of
14850-470: The colony was abandoned two years later. The Darien scheme was a financial disaster for Scotland: a quarter of Scottish capital was lost in the enterprise. The episode had major political consequences, helping to persuade the government of the Kingdom of Scotland of the merits of turning the personal union with England into a political and economic one under the Kingdom of Great Britain established by
15015-585: The construction of two airships: one, R100, to be designed and built by a specially established Vickers subsidiary managed by Burney, the Airship Guarantee Company; and the other to be designed by the government's Royal Airship Works at Cardington . Thomson's principal objections to the Burney plan were that at the end of the programme Vickers would have an effective monopoly of airship construction, that insufficient provision had been made for
15180-457: The continent. During the 1880s and 1890s, Rhodes, with his privately owned British South Africa Company , occupied and annexed territories named after him, Rhodesia . The path to independence for the white colonies of the British Empire began with the 1839 Durham Report , which proposed unification and self-government for Upper and Lower Canada, as a solution to political unrest which had erupted in armed rebellions in 1837. This began with
15345-572: The country following the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. Several people who helped establish the Munster plantations later played a part in the early colonisation of North America, particularly a group known as the West Country Men . In 1578, Elizabeth I granted a patent to Humphrey Gilbert for discovery and overseas exploration. That year, Gilbert sailed for the Caribbean with
15510-477: The decline of the empire. India , Britain's most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence in 1947 as part of a larger decolonisation movement, in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The Suez Crisis of 1956 confirmed Britain's decline as a global power, and the handover of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997 symbolised for many the end of the British Empire, though fourteen overseas territories that are remnants of
15675-420: The design process that design and construction costs would exceed the purchase price. Thus neither airship flew until late 1929. Both airships were overweight, R101 more so than R100, mainly due to its diesel engines. R101's weight problem was compounded by its having a smaller gas capacity than R100, a result of its innovative structural design, in which the transverse ring-frames occupied a larger proportion of
15840-400: The disaster might not have happened. The desire of all involved to achieve the flight to India before the conclusion of the 1930 Imperial Conference (at which decisions would be taken on the future of the airship programme) led to a premature flight in adverse weather conditions. Even before R100 and R101 were flown, it was realised that they were too small to carry a significant payload over
16005-659: The dropping aircraft (decreasing the chance of that aircraft being damaged by the force of the explosion below), increased the range of the bomb, and also prevented it from moving away from the target wall as it sank. After some initial scepticism, the Air Force accepted Wallis's bouncing bomb (codenamed Upkeep ) for attacks on the Möhne , Eder and Sorpe dams in the Ruhr area . The raid on these dams in May 1943 (Operation Chastise )
16170-657: The empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after the First World War, Britain was no longer the world's preeminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War , Britain's colonies in East Asia and Southeast Asia were occupied by the Empire of Japan . Despite the final victory of Britain and its allies , the damage to British prestige and the British economy helped accelerate
16335-537: The empire remain under British sovereignty . After independence, many former British colonies, along with most of the dominions, joined the Commonwealth of Nations , a free association of independent states. Fifteen of these, including the United Kingdom, retain the same person as monarch , currently King Charles III . The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England , following
16500-480: The enemy's power supplies, he wrote (as Axiom 3): "If their destruction or paralysis can be accomplished they offer a means of rendering the enemy utterly incapable of continuing to prosecute the war". As a means to do this, he proposed huge bombs that could concentrate their force and destroy targets which were otherwise unlikely to be affected. Wallis's first super-large bomb design came out at some ten tons, far more than any current bomber could carry. Rather than drop
16665-576: The exception of international relations . Australia and New Zealand achieved similar levels of self-government after 1900, with the Australian colonies federating in 1901 . The term "dominion status" was officially introduced at the 1907 Imperial Conference . As the dominions gained greater autonomy, they would come to be recognized as distinct realms of the empire with unique customs and symbols of their own. Imperial identity, through imagery such as patriotic artworks and banners, began developing into
16830-571: The expected power output. Similarly, the development of hydrogen/kerosene engines ran into difficulties and so the R100 team made a decision to use existing petrol-fuelled aircraft engines. This resulted in Canada being substituted for India as the destination of the acceptance trial flight. The initial timetable, drawn up in March 1924, expected construction of R101 to begin in July 1925 and be complete by
16995-684: The first permanent European settlement in British Columbia , Fort St. John . The North West Company sought further exploration and backed expeditions by David Thompson , starting in 1797, and later by Simon Fraser . These pushed into the wilderness territories of the Rocky Mountains and Interior Plateau to the Strait of Georgia on the Pacific Coast, expanding British North America westward. The East India Company fought
17160-411: The following July, with a trial flight to India planned for January 1927. Construction of R101 was delayed by the need for an extensive research program: among other things, this involved the construction and load-testing of an entire bay of the proposed design. R100 was also delayed by the limited resources available, due to it being constructed under a fixed-price contract; it was obvious fairly early in
17325-578: The following months. William Hobson declared British sovereignty over all New Zealand on 21 May 1840, over the North Island by cession and over the South Islnd by discovery (the island was sparsely populated and deemed terra nullius ). Hobson became Lieutenant-Governor, subject to Governor Sir George Gipps in Sydney, with British possession of New Zealand initially administered from Australia as
17490-468: The following year, abolished slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834, finally bringing the empire into line with the law in the UK (with the exception of the territories administered by the East India Company and Ceylon, where slavery was ended in 1844). Under the Act, slaves were granted full emancipation after a period of four to six years of "apprenticeship". Facing further opposition from abolitionists,
17655-465: The foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23 percent of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered 35.5 million km (13.7 million sq mi), 24 per cent of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its constitutional , legal , linguistic , and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it
17820-481: The gasbag framing. He also pioneered, along with John Edwin Temple, the use of light alloy and production engineering in the structural design of the R100. Nevil Shute Norway , later to become a writer under the name of Nevil Shute, was the chief calculator for the project, responsible for calculating the stresses on the frame. Despite a better-than-expected performance and a successful return flight to Canada in 1930,
17985-679: The government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement , and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788. Unusually, Australia was claimed through proclamation. Indigenous Australians were considered too uncivilised to require treaties, and colonisation brought disease and violence that together with the deliberate dispossession of land and culture were devastating to these peoples. Britain continued to transport convicts to New South Wales until 1840, to Tasmania until 1853 and to Western Australia until 1868. The Australian colonies became profitable exporters of wool and gold, mainly because of
18150-401: The idea, this led him to suggest a plane that could carry it – the " Victory Bomber ". Early in 1942, Wallis began experimenting with skipping marbles over water tanks in his garden, leading to his April 1942 paper " Spherical Bomb – Surface Torpedo". The idea was that a bomb could skip over the water surface, avoiding torpedo nets , and sink directly next to a battleship or dam wall as
18315-547: The ideas he suggested are the same as or closely related to the final design, including the idea of supporting the dish at its centre, the geodetic structure of the dish and the master equatorial control system. Unhappy with the direction it had taken, Wallis left the project halfway into the design study and refused to accept his £1,000 consultant's fee. In the 1960s, Wallis also proposed using large cargo submarines to transport oil and other goods, thus avoiding surface weather conditions. Moreover, Wallis's calculations indicated,
18480-555: The increasingly healthy profits of colonial trade remained in English hands, Parliament decreed in 1651 that only English ships would be able to ply their trade in English colonies. This led to hostilities with the United Dutch Provinces —a series of Anglo-Dutch Wars —which would eventually strengthen England's position in the Americas at the expense of the Dutch. In 1655, England annexed the island of Jamaica from
18645-467: The intended routes. A design study carried out at Cardington in February 1929 demonstrated that in order to meet the original operational requirement an airship of 9,300,000 cubic feet (260,000 m) would be necessary. The construction of an airship of nearly twice the volume of the existing designs was considered to require a substantial amount of research and would also necessitate the construction of
18810-495: The intention of asserting imperial authority and not allowing the sort of popular control of government that was perceived to have led to the American Revolution. Tensions between Britain and the United States escalated again during the Napoleonic Wars , as Britain tried to cut off American trade with France and boarded American ships to impress men into the Royal Navy . The United States Congress declared war,
18975-482: The intention of engaging in piracy and establishing a colony in North America, but the expedition was aborted before it had crossed the Atlantic. In 1583, he embarked on a second attempt. On this occasion, he formally claimed the harbour of the island of Newfoundland, although no settlers were left behind. Gilbert did not survive the return journey to England and was succeeded by his half-brother, Walter Raleigh , who
19140-408: The interior volume of the ship. These issues were initially addressed by increasing the gas capacity by letting out the gasbag wiring system, and later by the insertion of an extra bay. In August 1930, R100 made the transatlantic journey to Canada, visiting Quebec, Montreal and Toronto. At the end of June, work was started on lengthening R101 and it did not fly again until the start of October, when
19305-578: The larger trade, by 1720, in terms of sales, the British company had overtaken the Dutch. During the middle decades of the 18th century, there were several outbreaks of military conflict on the Indian subcontinent , as the English East India Company and its French counterpart , struggled alongside local rulers to fill the vacuum that had been left by the decline of the Mughal Empire . The Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which
19470-425: The late 1950s, Wallis gave a lecture titled "The strength of England" at Eton College , and continued to deliver versions of the talk into the early 1970s, presenting technology and automation as a way to restore Britain's dominance. He advocated nuclear-powered cargo submarines as a means of making Britain immune to future embargoes, and to make it a global trading power. He complained of the loss of aircraft design to
19635-400: The lives of his test pilots. His designs were extensively tested in model form, and consequently he became a pioneer in the remote control of aircraft. A massive 19,533 square feet (1,814.7 m ) Stratosphere Chamber (which was the world's largest facility of its type) was designed and built beside the clubhouse by 1948. It became the focus for much R&D work under Wallis's direction in
19800-474: The loss of so many airmen in the dams raid was such that Wallis donated the entire sum to his alma mater Christ's Hospital School in 1951 to allow them to set up the RAF Foundationers' Trust, assisting the children of RAF personnel killed or injured in action to attend the school. Around this time he also became an almoner of Christ's Hospital. When he retired from aeronautical work in 1957, he
19965-455: The loss of the Thirteen Colonies in 1783, the British government looked for an alternative, eventually turning to Australia . On his first of three voyages commissioned by the government, James Cook reached New Zealand in October 1769. He was the first European to circumnavigate and map the country. From the late 18th century, the country was regularly visited by explorers and other sailors, missionaries , traders and adventurers but no attempt
20130-632: The lower Congo River region undermining orderly colonisation of tropical Africa, the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 was held to regulate the competition between the European powers in what was called the " Scramble for Africa " by defining "effective occupation" as the criterion for international recognition of territorial claims. The scramble continued into the 1890s, and caused Britain to reconsider its decision in 1885 to withdraw from Sudan . A joint force of British and Egyptian troops defeated
20295-548: The most successful colony in the Americas, and one of the most densely populated places in the world. This boom led to the spread of sugar cultivation across the Caribbean, financed the development of non-plantation colonies in North America, and accelerated the growth of the Atlantic slave trade , particularly the triangular trade of slaves, sugar and provisions between Africa, the West Indies and Europe. To ensure that
20460-487: The north. The first of several Church of England missionaries arrived in 1814 and as well as their missionary role, they soon become the only form of European authority in a land that was not subject to British jurisdiction: the closest authority being the New South Wales governor in Sydney. The sale of weapons to Māori resulted from 1818 on in the intertribal warfare of the Musket Wars , with devastating consequences for
20625-735: The other powers of Europe. In 1701, England, Portugal and the Netherlands sided with the Holy Roman Empire against Spain and France in the War of the Spanish Succession , which lasted for thirteen years. In 1695, the Parliament of Scotland granted a charter to the Company of Scotland , which established a settlement in 1698 on the Isthmus of Panama . Besieged by neighbouring Spanish colonists of New Granada , and affected by malaria ,
20790-799: The outbreak of the Anglo-Spanish War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739, Spanish privateers attacked British merchant shipping along the Triangle Trade routes. In 1746, the Spanish and British began peace talks, with the King of Spain agreeing to stop all attacks on British shipping; however, in the 1750 Treaty of Madrid Britain lost its slave-trading rights in Latin America . In the East Indies, British and Dutch merchants continued to compete in spices and textiles. With textiles becoming
20955-474: The outbreak of the First World War. Britain quickly invaded and occupied most of Germany's overseas colonies in Africa. In the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand occupied German New Guinea and German Samoa respectively. Plans for a post-war division of the Ottoman Empire, which had joined the war on Germany's side, were secretly drawn up by Britain and France under the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement . This agreement
21120-691: The passing of the Act of Union in 1840, which created the Province of Canada . Responsible government was first granted to Nova Scotia in 1848, and was soon extended to the other British North American colonies. With the passage of the British North America Act, 1867 by the British Parliament , the Province of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were formed into Canada, a confederation enjoying full self-government with
21285-554: The power requirements for an underwater vessel were lower than for a comparable conventional ship and they could be made to travel at a much higher speed. He also proposed a novel hull structure which would have allowed greater depths to be reached, and the use of gas turbine engines in a submarine, using liquid oxygen. In the end, nothing came of Wallis's submarine ideas. During the 1960s and into his retirement, he developed ideas for an "all-speed" aircraft, capable of efficient flight at all speed ranges from subsonic to hypersonic . In
21450-448: The power vacuums that had been left by the declining Ottoman Empire , Qajar dynasty and Qing dynasty . This rivalry in Central Asia came to be known as the "Great Game". As far as Britain was concerned, defeats inflicted by Russia on Persia and Turkey demonstrated its imperial ambitions and capabilities and stoked fears in Britain of an overland invasion of India. In 1839, Britain moved to pre-empt this by invading Afghanistan , but
21615-408: The provision of suitable ground facilities, and that the proposed operating company would effectively be a state-subsidised concern but would not be subject to government control. A further benefit of his scheme was that at the end of the initial period there would be two airships. It was expected that the scheme would cost £1,350,000. The R100 would be designed largely using existing technology, while
21780-405: The region in 1878 and on all outstanding matters in 1907 with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente . The destruction of the Imperial Russian Navy by the Imperial Japanese Navy at the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 limited its threat to the British. The Dutch East India Company had founded the Dutch Cape Colony on the southern tip of Africa in 1652 as
21945-450: The role of global policeman, a state of affairs later known as the Pax Britannica , and a foreign policy of " splendid isolation ". Alongside the formal control it exerted over its own colonies, Britain's dominant position in world trade meant that it effectively controlled the economies of many countries, such as China, Argentina and Siam , which has been described by some historians as an " Informal Empire ". British imperial strength
22110-405: The round of cuts following the Sandys Defence White Paper in 1957, although Vickers continued model trials with some support from the RAE. An attempt to gain American funding led Wallis to initiate a joint NASA -Vickers study. NASA found aerodynamic problems with the Swallow and, informed also by their work on the Bell X-5 , settled for a conventional tail which would eventually lead in turn to
22275-409: The same as the 5-tonne " blockbuster " bomb, which was a conventional blast bomb. Although there was still no aircraft capable of lifting these two bombs to their optimal release altitude, they could be dropped from a lower height, entering the earth at supersonic speed and penetrating to a depth of 20 metres before exploding. They were used on strategic German targets such as V-2 rocket launch sites,
22440-423: The size of the territories under its control, either ruling directly or via local rulers under the threat of force from the Presidency Armies , the vast majority of which was composed of Indian sepoys , led by British officers. The British and French struggles in India became but one theatre of the global Seven Years' War (1756–1763) involving France, Britain, and the other major European powers. The signing of
22605-450: The sovereignty of the Crown over the territories that it had acquired. The company's eventual end was precipitated by the Indian Rebellion in 1857, a conflict that had begun with the mutiny of sepoys, Indian troops under British officers and discipline. The rebellion took six months to suppress, with heavy loss of life on both sides. The following year the British government dissolved the company and assumed direct control over India through
22770-420: The stress calculations. Writing under the name of Nevil Shute, Norway later became a successful novelist, and also wrote a memoir, Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer which gives an account of the airship development program. Design of the R101 was under the direction of Lt.Col. V. C. Richmond , with Michael Rope as his assistant and Harold Roxbee Cox as chief calculator. It was considered that petrol
22935-419: The subcontinent in which it is estimated that over 15 million people died. The East India Company had failed to implement any coordinated policy to deal with the famines during its period of rule. Later, under direct British rule, commissions were set up after each famine to investigate the causes and implement new policies, which took until the early 1900s to have an effect. On each of his three voyages to
23100-418: The successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, commissioned John Cabot to lead an expedition to discover a northwest passage to Asia via the North Atlantic. Cabot sailed in 1497, five years after the first voyage of Christopher Columbus , and made landfall on the coast of Newfoundland . He believed he had reached Asia, and there was no attempt to found a colony. Cabot led another voyage to
23265-494: The summer of 1930. In October 1930, the R101, beset with several design and manufacturing flaws, crashed and burned in France while attempting its first flight to India. In 1931, following the loss of the R101, the entire British airship scheme was terminated. In July 1921, Alfred Henry Ashbolt, the Agent-General for Tasmania , proposed the creation of an Imperial Airship Company to the Imperial Conference being held in London. The use of heavier-than-air craft over such distances
23430-401: The technique was not easily transferred to other aircraft manufacturers, nor was Vickers able to build other designs in factories tooled for geodetic work. After the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe in 1939, Wallis saw a need for strategic bombing to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war and he wrote a paper titled "A Note on a Method of Attacking the Axis Powers ". Referring to
23595-427: The various governments of the nations of the Empire was needed, and eventually only Australia felt that they could afford the investment. In 1922, the Vickers company – which had been involved in British airship construction since His Majesty's Airship No. 1 in 1911 – proposed a scheme for the development of large commercial airships to provide a passenger service to link the countries of the British Empire . Named
23760-440: The voyages—the English, later British, East India Company and the Dutch East India Company , chartered in 1600 and 1602 respectively. The primary aim of these companies was to tap into the lucrative spice trade , an effort focused mainly on two regions: the East Indies archipelago , and an important hub in the trade network, India. There, they competed for trade supremacy with Portugal and with each other. Although England eclipsed
23925-524: Was 34, and her father forbade them from courting. However, he allowed Wallis to assist Molly with her mathematics courses by correspondence, and they wrote some 250 letters, enlivening them with fictional characters such as "Duke Delta X". The letters gradually became personal, and Wallis proposed marriage on her 20th birthday. They were married on 23 April 1925, and remained so for 54 years until his death in 1979. For 49 years, from 1930 until his death, Wallis lived with his family in Effingham, Surrey , and he
24090-405: Was a humiliation for Spain, which practically renounced all sovereignty on the North Pacific coast. This opened the way to British expansion in the area, and a number of expeditions took place; firstly a naval expedition led by George Vancouver which explored the inlets around the Pacific North West, particularly around Vancouver Island . On land, expeditions sought to discover a river route to
24255-423: Was an English engineer and inventor . He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) 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 his version of the geodetic airframe and
24420-409: Was appointed Treasurer and Chairman of the Council of Almoners of Christ's Hospital, holding the post of Treasurer for nearly 13 years. During this time he oversaw its major reconstruction. Wallis was an active member of the Royal Air Forces Association , the charity that supports the RAF community. In April 1922, Wallis met his cousin-in-law, Molly Bloxam, at a family tea party. She was 17 and he
24585-420: Was chaired by the Air Member for Supply and Research , Air vice-marshal Geoffrey Salmond , and included among its members Burney and C. B. Thomson . Although the Burney Scheme was approved in principle, its adoption was delayed by Treasury misgivings about the financial details. Following the general election in December 1923 which resulted in a hung parliament , in January 1924, the Conservative government
24750-436: Was crippled by polio in 1893. He 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 , southeast London. He subsequently changed his apprenticeship to J. Samuel White 's, the shipbuilders based at Cowes on the Isle of Wight . He originally trained as
24915-472: Was described as " the empire on which the sun never sets ", as the sun was always shining on at least one of its territories. During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France , and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in
25080-481: Was founded as a haven by Puritan religious separatists, later known as the Pilgrims . Fleeing from religious persecution would become the motive for many English would-be colonists to risk the arduous trans-Atlantic voyage : Maryland was established by English Roman Catholics (1634), Rhode Island (1636) as a colony tolerant of all religions and Connecticut (1639) for Congregationalists . England's North American holdings were further expanded by
25245-472: Was granted his own patent by Elizabeth in 1584. Later that year, Raleigh founded the Roanoke Colony on the coast of present-day North Carolina , but lack of supplies caused the colony to fail. In 1603, James VI of Scotland ascended (as James I) to the English throne and in 1604 negotiated the Treaty of London , ending hostilities with Spain. Now at peace with its main rival, English attention shifted from preying on other nations' colonial infrastructures to
25410-450: Was immortalised in Paul Brickhill 's 1951 book The Dam Busters and the 1955 film of the same name. The Möhne and Eder dams were successfully breached, causing damage to German factories and disrupting hydro-electric power . After the success of the bouncing bomb, Wallis was able to return to his huge bombs, producing first the Tallboy (6 tonnes) and then the Grand Slam (10 tonnes) deep-penetration earthquake bombs . These were not
25575-404: Was made to settle the country or establish possession. The coast of Australia had been discovered for Europeans by the Dutch in 1606 , but there was no attempt to colonise it. In 1770, after leaving New Zealand, James Cook charted the eastern coast, claimed the continent for Britain, and named it New South Wales . In 1778, Joseph Banks , Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to
25740-429: Was not divulged to the Sharif of Mecca , who the British had been encouraging to launch an Arab revolt against their Ottoman rulers, giving the impression that Britain was supporting the creation of an independent Arab state. The British declaration of war on Germany and its allies committed the colonies and Dominions, which provided invaluable military, financial and material support. Over 2.5 million men served in
25905-435: Was powered by compressed air and hydrogen peroxide , and had an unusual streamlined shape designed to maintain laminar flow over much of its length. Tests were conducted from Portland Breakwater in Dorset. The only surviving example is on display in the Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower at Gosport . In 1955, Wallis agreed to act as a consultant to the project to build the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia. Some of
26070-485: Was referred to a sub-committee of the Committee for Imperial Defence for consideration. Although this committee reported favourably in August 1922, no action was taken by the Government until after the 1922 General Election , which returned a Conservative government led by Bonar Law . The new government re-established the advisory committee to explore the financial details of the scheme and also established an Advisory Panel to examine technical and operational matters. This
26235-442: Was replaced by Ramsay MacDonald 's Labour administration . Thomson had stood as Labour candidate in the general election but was not returned; since MacDonald wanted him in the government he was elevated to the House of Lords as Lord Thomson of Cardington, and became Secretary of State for Air in the new government. Under Lord Thomson, the Burney Scheme was rejected and replaced by the Imperial Airship Scheme. The new scheme involved
26400-440: Was returning across the Atlantic, laden with treasure from the New World . At the same time, influential writers such as Richard Hakluyt and John Dee (who was the first to use the term "British Empire") were beginning to press for the establishment of England's own empire. By this time, Spain had become the dominant power in the Americas and was exploring the Pacific Ocean, Portugal had established trading posts and forts from
26565-443: Was seen as impractical at this time. The company was to be partly financed by the countries of the Empire, with some funding from private sources and the rest provided by the British government. A sub-committee chaired by Frederick Guest , the Secretary of State for Air , was established to investigate the idea. Although this reported favourably, no firm decision was reached since the members considered that further consultation with
26730-427: Was supported by the British prime minister , William Gladstone , who hoped that Ireland might follow in Canada's footsteps as a Dominion within the empire, but his 1886 Home Rule bill was defeated in Parliament. Although the bill, if passed, would have granted Ireland less autonomy within the UK than the Canadian provinces had within their own federation, many MPs feared that a partially independent Ireland might pose
26895-481: Was the only global war fought between Britain and another imperial power during the Pax Britannica and was a resounding defeat for Russia. The situation remained unresolved in Central Asia for two more decades, with Britain annexing Baluchistan in 1876 and Russia annexing Kirghizia , Kazakhstan , and Turkmenistan . For a while, it appeared that another war would be inevitable, but the two countries reached an agreement on their respective spheres of influence in
27060-401: Was underpinned by the steamship and the telegraph , new technologies invented in the second half of the 19th century, allowing it to control and defend the empire. By 1902, the British Empire was linked together by a network of telegraph cables, called the All Red Line . The East India Company drove the expansion of the British Empire in Asia. The company's army had first joined forces with
27225-400: Was unsuitable as a fuel for airships intended for use in hot climates due to its low flash point . For this reason, R101 was powered by diesel engines , and R100 was originally intended to use engines burning a mixture of hydrogen and kerosene . The program to develop the Beardmore Tornado diesel engines was beset with difficulties, the engines being both overweight and unable to produce
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