Rex Wailes

Rex Wailes OBE, FSA, F I Mech E (1901 – January 6 1986) was an English engineer and historian who published widely on aspects of engineering history and industrial archaeology, particularly on windmills and watermills.

In 1923, while serving his apprenticeship with Robey, an engineering firm in Lincoln, he was asked by the then president of the Newcomen Society to record windmills in Lincolnshire. At the time, English windmills were rapidly falling into disuse and being demolished, and it was felt that some attempt should be made to record a vanishing aspect of the English countryside. In 1929, he was appointed as the technical advisor to the newly-formed Windmill Section (now the Mills Section) of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. In this post, he visited numerous mills in England and developed a reputation as the leading British authority on them, presenting more than thirty papers on mill-related subjects to the Newcomen Society. He was also invited to report on mills overseas, notably in the United States, presenting a paper on the Windmills of Long Island for the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities in 1935. he was also the consultant for the construction of Robertson's post mill at Colonial Williamsburg in the 1950s.

Other books followed, the most notable of which were "Windmills in England" 1948 and "The English Windmill" 1954, the latter in particular being considered the classic work on the subject.

In 1962 he was appointed as lead consultant to the Industrial Monuments Survey then being undertaken by the Ministry of Works in an effort to identify historic industrial sites which were worthy of preservation under the Town and Country Planning Acts.

References

* Major, J. Kenneth, "Rex Wailes, An Appreciation of His Work", First Rex Wailes Memorial Lecture, presented at the Science Museum, London, 10 May 1989, Published by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, London, 1990.