Harry Wimperis

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Harry Wimperis
Wh.Sch
Born(1876-08-27)27 August 1876
Edmonton, Middlesex, England
Died16 July 1960(1960-07-16) (aged 83)
Edinburgh
, Scotland

Harry Egerton Wimperis

bombing
.

Biography

Wimperis was born on 27 August 1876 to Joseph Price Wimperis, an Australian merchant, and Jemima Samuel in

internal combustion, road transport and air navigation.[4]

Among his many inventions and works are the Wimperis accelerometer of 1909,

gyroscopic turn indicator, and followed this with an optical speedometer, rate of roll indicator, indicated airspeed calculator and his famed bombsights.[7]

Wimperis was commissioned as a

Royal Navy Air Service (RNAS).[9] Here he was put on the problem of devising a useful bombsight that did not require manual calculations or a stopwatch to estimate the wind speed. The result was his Drift Sight, which used a small bar that was aligned with the motion of objects on the ground to measure the wind. He then greatly expanded on this design in his Course Setting Bomb Sight (CSBS) in 1917, introducing the first system to allow bomb runs from any direction, instead of just up or down the wind line. The CSBS has been called "the most important bombsight of the war".[10]

Wimperis remained with air service as it merged into the

Committee for the Scientific Study of Air Defence, placing Henry Tizard in the chairman's position.[12] This group was instrumental in the creation of radar in the UK, and the Chain Home system that was instrumental to winning the Battle of Britain
.

In 1938 Wimperis served as the aeronautical advisor to the

Whitworth Society 47 years after becoming a scholar. From 1946 to 1950 he was a member of the Atomic Energy Study Group, Chatham House.[9]

His wife, Grace d'Avray Parkin, was the daughter of Canadian George Robert Parkin.[9] They married on 28 September 1907 and had three daughters.[14]

Wimperis died in Edinburgh on 16 July 1960 at the age of 83.

Honours

He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours for his efforts during the First World War,[15] and a Commander of the Order in the 1928 Birthday Honours.[16] He was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the 1935 Birthday Honours.[17]

References

Notes

  1. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
  2. ^ "Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349–1897", 1897, pg. 555
  3. ^ The Whitworth Register, 2017. The Whitworth Society. pp. 36, 114.
  4. ^ "Books by Harry Egerton Wimperis"", Amazon.com
  5. ^ UK Patent 20,231
  6. ^ Faulkner & Skinner, "Determination of AutomobilePerformance by Means of the Wimperis Accelerometer"], Armour Institute of Technology, 1915
  7. ^ C.T.Bartlett, "Elliott Brothers to BAE SYSTEMS" Archived 22 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ "No. 29287". The London Gazette. 7 September 1915. p. 8872.
  9. ^ a b c d Archives 2021.
  10. ^ Christina Goulter, "A forgotten offensive", Routledge, 1995, pg. 27
  11. ^ Raymond Watson Jr., "Radar Origins Worldwide", Trafford Publishing, 2009, pg. 60
  12. ^ Hannah Gay, "The history of Imperial College London, 1907–2007", World Scientific, 2007, pg. 240
  13. Flight
    . 89 (2965): 65–70. 6 January 1966.
  14. ^ "Harry Egerton Wimperis 1876 – 1960", Our Maritime Ties
  15. ^ "No. 30460". The London Gazette (Supplement). 7 January 1918. p. 388.
  16. ^ "No. 33390". The London Gazette (Supplement). 8 June 1928. p. 3855.
  17. ^ "No. 34166". The London Gazette (Supplement). 3 June 1935. p. 3596.

Bibliography

Professional and academic associations
Preceded by President of the Royal Aeronautical Society
1936–38 		Succeeded by
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