Augusta Ada Byron

10 December 1815 - 27 November 1852

Standard Name: Byron, Augusta Ada

Birth Name: Augusta Ada Byron

Married Name: Augusta Ada King

Titled: Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace

Pseudonym: A. L. L.

AAB 's sole publication is A Sketch of the Analytical Engine, her highly praised explication and illustration of Charles Babbage 's Analytical Engine. Many now claim that her Sketch constitutes the first example of computer programming. Ada also composed a handful of unpublished essays as well as thousands of letters, some of which have recently been published.

Byron, Augusta Ada. Ada, The Enchantress of Numbers. Editor Toole, Betty A., Strawberry Press, 1992.

Full profile

Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Family and Intimate relationships	George Gordon sixth Baron Byron	Lady Melbourne had good cause to know that Byron could find brilliance in a woman attractive, and good cause to hope that a woman of ability who was also focussed and controlled might be able...
Family and Intimate relationships	Ménie Muriel Dowie	MMD 's maternal grandfather was Robert Chambers of Edinburgh, who wrote Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (which, published anonymously, was briefly ascribed both to Augusta Ada Byron and to Catherine Crowe )...
Family and Intimate relationships	Julia Constance Fletcher	By 1877 JCF was rumoured to have had a brief but tempestuous affair, perhaps a broken engagement, with Ralph Gordon Noel Milbanke, thirteenth Baron Wentworth, second Earl Lovelace , son of the mathematical genius Ada Lovelace
Family and Intimate relationships	Susan Tweedsmuir	ST 's maternal aunt Mary married Ralph, second Earl of Lovelace , who was a grandson of the poet Byron and son of Augusta Ada Byron , later Countess of Lovelace (mathematician and author of...
Friends, Associates	Mary Somerville	MS became a friend and mathematical advisor to Ada Byron ; Ada probably met Charles Babbage (whose calculating machine she became the first to programme) through the Somervilles. Patterson, Elizabeth Chambers. Mary Somerville and the Cultivation of Science, 1815-1840. Martinus Nijhoff, 1983. 148-9, 180
Friends, Associates	Elizabeth Rigby	ER appeared in public as Mrs Eastlake for the first time at the house of Lady Davy , where she was introduced to Augusta Ada Byron (Byron's daughter) and to Thackeray . At London parties...
Friends, Associates	Elizabeth Grant	During their journeys between London and the Highlands, EG and her family would stop at various locations where they met interesting people. For example, while resting at Seaham for some time, they became acquainted with...
Friends, Associates	Anna Brownell Jameson	By 1840, ABJ expressed a desire to be of service to Lady Byron in her affairs. When Elizabeth Medora Leigh (supposedly the daughter of Byron and his half-sister Augusta Leigh ) arrived in England to...
Friends, Associates	Florence Nightingale	FN 's dissatisfaction with her domestic situation intensified after she returned to England. She came to rely on friends for comfort and intellectual stimulation. She was close to her cousin Hilary Bonham Carter , especially...
Author summary	Harriet Beecher Stowe	HBS is best known for the highly sentimental and influential anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, although she also authored several other novels, short stories, children's stories, pamphlets, a good deal of journalism, and a...
Textual Features	Harriet Beecher Stowe	She also published articles in the Atlantic Monthly between 1857 and 1879. She wrote of slavery and emancipation, and of domestic topics. Her Sojourner Truth . The Libyan Sybil appeared in April 1963, and The...
Textual Production	Jane Welsh Carlyle	In her youth Jane Welsh composed verse translations from texts by Goethe and Pierre Cardenal , and of Chateaubriand 's Atala. She also wrote a number of original short poems; two of those that...

Timeline

Autumn 1834

Charles Babbage envisioned the Analytical Engine or calculating machine, an advance on his previous work on the Difference Engine and precursor to the modern computer.

Hyman, Anthony. Charles Babbage: Pioneer of the Computer. Princeton University Press, 1982.

1, 164-6, 253

Hyman, Anthony, editor. Science and Reform: Selected Works of Charles Babbage. Cambridge University Press, 1989.

242

Swade, Doron. Charles Babbage and his Calculating Engines. Science Museum, 1991.

Stanley, Autumn. Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology. Scarecrow Press, 1993.

633

Baum, Joan. The Calculating Passion of Ada Byron. Archon Books, 1986.

66ff, 105

13 April 1993

Tom Stoppard 's Arcadia, a play whose action is divided between the early nineteenth century and the present day, opened (after previews) at the National Theatre in London.

“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.

64610 (5 April 1993): 28

Texts

Byron, Augusta Ada. “A Sketch of the Analytical Engine”. Scientific Memoirs, edited by Richard, 1781 - 1858 Taylor, Printed by R. and J. E. Taylor, 1843.