Meet Lovelace

If asked, could you name…

🏔 The first person to climb the highest mountain in the world?
⚛️ How about the first person to discover the laws of gravity?
💻 What about the world’s first computer programmer?

Meet Ada Lovelace

1. She was the world’s first computer programmer, writing the first complex program in 1843.
2. She had an education in mathematics and was an extraordinary mathematician.
3. Her friends called her an “enchantress of numbers”.
4. Ada called herself “an analyst and metaphysician”.
5. Her father was the infamous poet, Lord Byron, and her mother, Anne Isabella Milbanke had an education in mathematics too.
6. She was born in 1815 in London, England and died aged 36 in 1852.
7. At age 17, she met the 42-year-old famous inventor, Charles Babbage. He was working on the Analytical Engine (the world’s first computer). While Charles was trying to automate mathematics, Ada had the foresight to realise that computers could become the tool of human imagination.
8. Ada realised it would be what we told computers to do (programming) that would unlock its potential.
9. Her programming had line-by-line instructions, it also has looping and conditional branching.
10. Her program never had the opportunity to be tested, as Charles’ Analytical Engine was never completed, but had it be built it would have worked in 1843.
11. The full size working machine from the designs of Ada and Charles were not made until 2002 by a team of scientists at the London Science Museum.
12. Like many women of the time who were never seeking accolades, Ada was not interested in being known for her programming.
13. Ada was not going to sign her work but her husband encouraged her to do so, so she signed her work “AAL”.
14. On July 8, 1835, she married William King, 8th Baron King, and, when he was created an earl in 1838, she became countess of Lovelace.
15. Her work was completely ignored, likely because she was a woman, and it took 101 years until her work was finally recognised.
16. It was Alan Turning that for the first time talks about Ada’s work – when he was working on artificial intelligence.
17. In the 1970s, the US Military recognised the work of Ada Lovelace – they named a computer language after her, “Ada”.
18. Nowadays, in the world of tech, Ada Lovelace is recognised as a pioneering woman in tech.
19.  Ada was written out of history, so we decided to acknowledge her-story by naming our new blend, Lovelace, after her.
20. Our Lovelace Blend represents all the women from yesterday, today, and tomorrow, whose brilliance deserves to be acknowledged.

Grab a Victorian chair, dust off the cobwebs, and sip a lil history with our LOVELACE blend.