Newsademic British English edition 260

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L
ovelace
 
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Each year, the second Tuesday 
o f October is Ada Lovelace Day. 
This year it was on 13th October. 
Many people do not know who Ada 
Lovelace was. Yet she is sometimes 
described as the ‘world’s first com­
puter programmer’. Surprisingly, 
Ada lived long before the invention 
o f computers.
Ada Lovelace Day began in 2009. 
It was organised by Suw Charman- 
Anderson. She is a journalist and 
communication 
software 
expert 
from the UK. Ms Charman-Ander- 
son said she wanted there to be an 
Ada Lovelace Day for two reasons. 
One is to celebrate the achievements 
o f many women in science. The oth­
er is to encourage more women to 
study science, technology, engineer­
ing, and maths (STEM).
Ada Lovelace was born in the UK 
in 1815. Her family name was Gor­
don. Her father, George Gordon, be­
came Lord Byron, the famous poet. 
Ada married the Earl o f Lovelace 
when she was 19. In the UK, ‘earl’ 
is a high-ranking title that can be 
given by a king or queen. After her 
marriage she became known as Ada
Lovelace. She died o f cancer in 1852 
when she was only 36 years old.
Ada was very good at maths. B e­
ing able to study maths was unusual 
for a woman at that time. Her mother 
was also a keen mathematician. One 
o f A da’s teachers introduced her to a 
man called Charles Babbage. He was 
trying to build several giant clock­
work machines for calculating. Ada 
and Babbage began to work together.
P ortrait o f Ada Lovelace p a in ted in 1836 by
M argaret Sarah Carpenter
Babbage was a brilliant math­
ematician, engineer, inventor, and 
philosopher. Much o f his work was 
done during the time known as the 
Victorian era. This period o f Brit­
ish history is named after Queen 
Victoria. She reigned between 1837 
and 1901. During the Victorian era 
many new inventions were put into 
use. These included trains, steam­
ships, gas lighting, electricity sup­
plies, and photography.
At that time there were no calcu­
lators. People who were very good 
at arithmetic could make their liv­
ing from adding up and working out 
mathematical problems. They were

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