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computer programming to be recognised when before computer programming

existed.

Augustus De Morgan, the maths tutor who taught Ada symbolic logic, wrote to her
mother in 1840 to say although he acknowledged that Ada had a first-class and
original mathematical mind, the exertion of doing mental work of such a ground-
breaking nature might prove too much for her frail, female body. Her mind could
cope; her body couldn’t. This was typical of the sort of convoluted arguments that
th
were used in the 19 century and other periods to justify gender discrimination.
Luckily, Lady Byron disregarded his fears.

James Essinger has recently published a useful and award-winning joint biography of
Charles and Ada which fortunately takes a more sober and balanced view than that
suggested by his extravagant title, typical of some of the hyperbole Ada sometimes
attracts: Ada’s Algorithm: How Lord Byron’s Daughter Launched the Digital Age
Through the Poetry of Numbers, 2018. On the other hand, some historians of

computing try to write off Ada’s contribution altogether, claiming that as a mere
secretary she could not have added anything significant to Babbage’s work. As we
have seen, this is highly dubious. Whether or not she was “the world’s first computer
programmer”, her place as a pioneer of modern computer is as secure as Babbage’s.

Lady Byron reconsidered
It’s not only Ada who has suffered under the hands of male historians. Her mother,
Lady Byron, has also been disregarded and denigrated. Admirers of Byron have

generally taken his side in their scandalous break-up. Their basic position has been,
how dare she be so naïve as to believe she could have made a heroic genius like
Byron happy? Germaine Greer made the point (in Shakespeare’s Wife, 2008) that the
biographers of great men in history tend to denigrate their wives. A further factor
with Lady Byron is that Lord Byron is viewed as Romantic hero. The idea of the
doomed hero, lonely, tortured but defiantly trusting in his genius, is deeply rooted in

the Romantic Movement. Here is the template, Caspar Friedrich’s Wanderer Above
The Mists.