He died at the age of 36, at the height of his celebrityhood, when Ada was 8. Her very brief marriage to Byron fell apart when Ada was just 5 weeks old, and Ada never saw Byron again (though he kept a picture of her on his desk and famously mentioned her in his poetry). In addition to writing poetry and flouting the social norms of his time, he was often doing the unusual: keeping a tame bear in his college rooms in Cambridge, living it up with poets in Italy and “five peacocks on the grand staircase”, writing a grammar book of Armenian, and-had he not died too soon-leading troops in the Greek war of independence (as celebrated by a big statue in Athens), despite having no military training whatsoever.Īnnabella Milbanke was an educated, religious and rather proper woman, interested in reform and good works, and nicknamed by Byron “Princess of Parallelograms”. Byron had a wild life-and became perhaps the top “bad boy” of the 19th century-with dark episodes in childhood, and lots of later romantic and other excesses. Her father said he gave her the name “Ada” because “It is short, ancient, vocalic”.Īda’s parents were something of a study in opposites. Her mother, Annabella Milbanke, was a 23-year-old heiress committed to progressive causes, who inherited the title Baroness Wentworth. Her father, Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) was 27 years old, and had just achieved rock-star status in England for his poetry. Ada Byron, as she was then called, was born in London on Decemto recently married high-society parents. Idea Makers: Personal Perspectives on the Lives & Ideas of Some Notable People » SoundCloud » WIRED » The Early Life of Ada It’s a complex story, and to understand it, we’ll have to start by going over quite a lot of facts and narrative. In some ways it’s an ennobling and inspiring story in some ways it’s frustrating and tragic. And there’s a surprising amount of misinformation and misinterpretation out there.īut after quite a bit of research-including going to see many original documents-I feel like I’ve finally gotten to know Ada Lovelace, and gotten a grasp on her story. The whole story is entwined with the customs of 19th-century British high society.
The technology is difficult to understand. The personalities in the story are hard to read. And in preparation for her bicentennial, I decided to try to solve what for me has always been the “mystery of Ada”. I’ve been curious for a long time what the real story is. To some she is a great hero in the history of computing to others an overestimated minor figure. Ada Lovelace was born 200 years ago today.
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