The series of Chadwick Memorial Lectures was started in 1956 by Harold Rogerson who gave a very complete picture of Roy Chadwick's life and experience as an aircraft designer. Since then lectures in this series have mainly concerned problems on future projects, which would certainly have excited his lively interest, rather than nostalgic reviews of the past.

However, when I was honoured by being asked to give the 14th Lecture of the series it occurred to me that nothing would be more appropriate than a paper on the History of the Vulcan, since it was not only a major Avro enterprise in its own right, but it was also the last project with which Roy Chadwick was intimately concerned. It had a peculiar fascination for him, because he had, all the time I knew him, an enthusiasm for the all-wing transport as the ultimate in aerodynamic and structural efficiency