Ada Lovelace

Day 96 - Cycled to Oxshott for lovely lunch in a friends garden. Back through Esher to see plaque of Ada Lovelace(1815-1852) who lived in Sandown House from 1841. It is opposite Sandown Park Race Course and is now divided up into many apartments. ( See extra...it is a gated development and this is not all of it!) Ada created the first algorithm which allowed Charles Babbage’s computer to be used beyond pure calculation, making her the world’s first computer programmer. She was the daughter of Lord Byron however she did not live with him when growing up and he died when she was 8. She came into contact with many scientists including Michael Faraday as well as Babbage and Mary Somerville . She also knew Charles Dickens who read a passage from his novel ‘Dombey and son’ on her deathbed. She suffered from uterine cancer and died aged 36, the same age that her father died. She is buried with him in the family vault in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.

- so much traffic on the main roads today had to be very alert
- decided which of our old cameras we do not need, taking to son for him to sell on eBay!
- loaded car with a few plants for sister-in-law and various baby things for grandson for tomorrow’s day trip to Hampshire and Somerset
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