Ada Lovelace: The Making of a Computer Scientist

2018

Central QA29 L72 H65 2018; Every effort has been made to trace copyright ownership and to obtain permission for reproduction. If you believe you are the copyright owner of an item on this site, and we have not requested your permission, please contact us at special.collections@otago.ac.nz

Oxford: Bodleian Library

Ada Lovelace (1815-52), daughter of poet, Lord Byron, was home schooled by her mother, Anne Isabella, and a series of governesses. Ada was limited by societal expectations on women, and was not allowed to attend university, so she pursued her studies informally by writing to scholarly family friends. Ada married in 1835, and continued her study of mathematics ‘by correspondence’ with University College of London Professor Augustus De Morgan (1806-71) – she was his only female private pupil. She first met computer scientist, Charles Babbage (1791-1871) in 1833, and went on to collaborate with him on various projects. In 1843, Ada included a computation table in a published paper, and it is regarded as the first computer program. She suffered from ill health most of her life, and died young, aged 36.