Welcome to the first entry of 2020 entry my 'historical figures' playlist. If you're

just joining us and you enjoy learning about queer or disabled people of the past who did

amazing things then subscribe! Today we're going to be talking about Ada Lovelace, an

English mathematician and writer, the first to recognise that computers had applications

beyond pure calculation and is thus sometimes called the woman who wrote the first algorithm.

She lived a tempestuous but sadly short life with many exciting twists that we'll be

discussing today!

Whilst not necessarily classed as 'disabled' Ada struggled with chronic illness throughout

her life and managed to achieve many wonderful things despite dealing with a body that occasionally

paralysed

- which is something my body does because I have Hereditary Neuropathy with liability

to Pressure Palsies, so… I relate.

Today's video is sponsored by Skillshare,

- it's my first sponsored historical profile, yay!

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- 'UX' means 'User Experience' by the way.

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The Hon. Augusta Ada Byron was born in England on the 10 December 1815 to Anne Isabella Noel

Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and George Gordon Byron, the 6th Baron Byron, more commonly

known as 'Lord Byron the poet and terrible father'

- Okay, I added the second bit. But you'll see!

Ada's mother, Anne Isabella, commonly nicknamed 'Annabella', was a highly educated and

strictly religious woman. As a child her extreme intelligence had been cultivated by her parents

who hired as her tutor a former Cambridge University professor. Her education thus proceeded

much like that of a Cambridge student; with studies involving classical literature, philosophy,

science and mathematics.

In fact Lord Byron nicknamed her his "princess of parallelograms".

- Right, side note. You may find it confusing that Lord Byron is called 'Lord' Byron

despite being a Baron. Well, yes, the British peerage is confusing but to break it down:

There are five ranks of peer in the UK:

And yes, they still exist.

- In descending order: Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount and Baron. Lord is a generic term

that is used to denote members of the peerage and most often used by Barons who are rarely

addressed by their formal title. The correct way of addressing Byron would be 'The Lord

Byron' but no one actually says 'The' because that's unwieldy. Marguesses, Earls

and Viscounts are are also commonly addressed as 'Lord' but Dukes aren't because they

use the style of 'The Duke of…' (Cambridge for example). Formally you would address them

as 'Your Grace' rather than 'My Lord'. Because religion.

And that's a story for another time.

Annabella was a cold, stiff, religious woman and an unlikely match for the amoral and agnostic

poet Lord Byron. She met him socially in 1812 because he had began a relationship with her

cousin's wife.

Red flag.

Byron's popularity was soaring following his many literary successes but he was deeply

in debt because he refused to make money from his work as he believed business was not appropriate

for a gentleman and seemed to prefer extreme financial distress.

[crickets sfx]

Red flag.

She also suspected that Byron was having an affair with his half sister.

Do I need to say it?

Red flag!

He proposed in October 1812 through her aunt and in response Annabella wrote a scathing

summary of his character and refused him, telling her mother "He is a very bad, very

good man". However, plagued with an obsession for her modesty and intellect, Byron proposed

again in September 1814.

Annabella decided that, aware of Byron's rage, philandering, drinking and money troubles,

it was her Christian duty to support him and improve his behaviour.

[crickets sfx]

- What a great basis for a marriage (!)

If only she'd had better friends who could point out that was a stupid idea…

During the summer of 1815, he began to unleash his anger and hostility on his wife. His moods

were dark, he drank heavily and began an affair with an actress. Annabella, now pregnant,

became extremely distressed and wrote to Byron's half sister, Augusta Leigh,

(the afford mentioned half-sister)

who traveled to

the Byron's home to assist and upon arrival became the new subject of Lord Byron's wrath.

On the 10th of December Annabella gave birth to Ada but this only seemed to increase Byron's

despair.

He had written in letters that he expected his child to be a "glorious boy" and was highly

disappointed when she turned out to be a girl. He named her Augusta Ada Byron after the half-sister

he was clearly far too fond of, who had the year before given birth to a child that the

family were pretty sure was Byron's.

So that's… great.

On 16 January 1816, Lord Byron commanded that Lady Byron left for her parents' home and

took five-week-old Ada with her. It was to be the last time Ada ever saw her father.

He left England four months later and officially separated from his wife. Although British

law at the time granted full custody of children to the father in cases of separation, Lord

Byron made no attempt to claim his parental rights and died of disease in the Greek War

of Independence, fighting the Ottoman Empire, when Ada was eight years old.

Lady Byron remained incredibly bitter and continued throughout her life to make allegations

about her husband's immoral behaviour. Which we probably can't judge her for, to be fair,

but it likely wasn't good for her own mental health.

In an attempt to prevent Ada from developing her father's perceived insanity, Lady Byron

promoted Ada's interest in mathematics and logic, steering her away from anything judged

to be 'frivolous'. Ada was not even allowed to see a portrait of her father until her

20th birthday.

As you can perhaps already imagine, Ada did not have a close relationship with her mother

although due to societal attitudes of the time, which favoured the father in separations,

Lady Byron had to present herself as a loving mother. In reality Ada was instead left in

the care of her maternal grandmother Judith, who did actually dote

on her. In order to prove her 'good mothering' Lady Byron wrote anxious letters to her mother

concerning her daughter's welfare-

- with a cover saying to show them to people cause yeah...

She did have an unfortunate habit of referring to her daughter as 'it' though. Which…

isn't exactly on the list of prime mothering. Neither is her letter stating: "I talk to

it for your satisfaction, not my own, and shall be very glad when you have it under

your own."

Thanks mom!

As a teenager Ada was fiercely watched by close friends of her mother for any sign of

moral deviation.

Beginning in early childhood Ada struggled with bouts of illness and from the age of

eight experienced headaches that obscured her vision-

- which I also relate to a lot, having lost the vision in my left eye from a migraine.

[sigh] ah, relatable historical figures(!)

In June 1829, at the age of 14, she was paralysed during a bout of measles and was subjected

to bed rest for nearly a year-

- like I was!

It took her two years to be able to walk again with the help of crutches, during which time

she used a wheelchair.

- [relatable nodding face]

She used this recovery time to develop her mathematical and technological skills. As

a 12-year-old as decided she wanted to fly and went about the project methodically and

passionately, constructing wings from different materials and in different sizes. She examined

the anatomy of birds to determine the right proportion between the wings and the body

and wrote a book with illustrative plates called Flyology because yes, that's just

the kind of incredible child she was.

Her upbringing was certainly unusual for an aristocratic girl in the 1800s. Mathematics

and science were not standard fare for women at the time but she had inherited her mother's

extreme intelligence and her father's imaginative prowess. Lady Byron believed that only rigorous

study could prevent Ada from developing her father's mental illness (not how that works).

Yet she also believed that forcing her daughter to lie completely still for long periods of

time whilst awake would develop her self-control.

Unsurprisingly Lady Byron did not win any parenting awards.

Fortunately Ada had a natural aptitude for numbers and language. She was taught by the

social reformer William Frend and the Scottish astronomer and mathematician Mary Somerville,

who was one of the first women to be admitted into the Royal Astronomical Society.

Around the age of 17 Ada met the famous mathematician

and inventor Charles Babbage through Somerville.

Babbage clearly saw something great in Ada and became her mentor. She was fascinated

with Babbage's ideas and inventions. Known now as 'the father of the computer', Babbage

was at that time inventing the difference engine, a machine that performed mathematical

calculations, and showed it to Ada before it was finished.

In her work Ada often questioned assumptions by integrating poetry and science. While studying

differential calculus, she wrote to her tutor Augustus De Morgan:

“I may remark that the curious transformations many formulae can undergo, the unsuspected

and to a beginner apparently impossible identity of forms exceedingly dissimilar at first sight,

is I think one of the chief difficulties in the early part of mathematical studies. I

am often reminded of certain sprites and fairies one reads of, who are at one's elbows in one

shape now, and the next minute in a form most dissimilar.”

She believed that both intuition and imagination were critical to effectively applying mathematical

and scientific concepts and valued metaphysics, the brand of philosophy that examines the

fundamental nature of reality, as much as mathematics.

She described her approach as

'poetical science'.

On being presented at court at the age of seventeen she became immensely popular, thanks

to both her rather infamous parentage but also her brilliant mind. She danced at many

balls, becoming a regular at Court and was described as being dainty and charming.

At the age of 20, in July 1835 she married William, 8th Baron King and became Lady King.

He supported his wife's academia and they shared a love of horses, going on to have

three children… I mean if the most British thing you've ever heard of: love of horses.

And they went on have 3 children together: Byron, Anne Isabella (called Annabella) and

Ralph Gordon. And yes, all three of them were pretty much named after Ada's parents. She

apparently was pretty strong willed!

Immediately after the birth of Annabella in 1837, Ada

once again became very ill with a bout of cholera. She was already battling with asthma

and digestive problems and look months to shake the illness, during which time doctors

gave her painkillers like laudanum and opium and reportedly she experienced mood swings

and hallucinations…

- Probably because she was high.

Ada was a descendant of the Barons Lovelace, a title that had gone extinct, and thus when

her husband was made an Earl in 1838 they chose to take up the mantle 'Earl of Lovelace

and Viscount Ockham', making Ada 'Countess of Lovelace'.

- Yes, the British aristocracy is confusing. Should I make an explainer video about it?

Would that be helpful for future historical videos?

Ada was asked to translate an article on Babbage's analytical engine by Italian engineer Luigi

Federico Menabrea... ahh names

for a Swiss journal. She not only translated the complex scientific

language into English (just casually brilliant) but added her own thoughts and ideas on the

machine. Her notes, which she named 'Notes', (gotta love an economical girl) ended up being

three times longer than the original piece and was published in 1843 in an English science

journal. Within them Ada describes how codes could be created for the device to handle

letters and symbols along with numbers. She also theorized a method for the engine to

repeat a series of instructions, a process known as looping that computer programs use

today.

Within 'Notes' is what many historians consider to be the first computer program—ie,

an algorithm designed to be carried out by a machine. Yet others refute this, pointing