I'm here today to introduce one of our most exciting collections
from the British Library Manuscripts Collection, which is a series
of letters from Ada Lovelace to the computer pioneer Charles Babbage.
And together, both Ada Lovelace and Babbage are seen as really
the first people who created what is now today
a modern computer.
This is a collection
of about 20 volumes of letters written to Charles Babbage.
And within them, there are a series of correspondence from Ada Lovelace
to Babbage, really about their work on the beginnings of a computer.
Ada Lovelace was born in 1815,
and she was roughly contemporary
with the writer Charlotte Bronte, to put things in perspective.
And she died when she was relatively young at the age of thirty six.
And Charles Babbage was her senior.
He was born in 1791
and he lived until 1871.
So he actually extended way beyond the passing of Ada Lovelace.
Ada Lovelace was the daughter of the romantic poet Lord Byron.
But he left very, very early on in her childhood
and really have very little influence on her as she was growing up.
And her mother really encouraged
the ADA, pursued her interest in mathematics,
which she felt was somehow a counterbalance to the madness of poetry.
And so Ada Lovelace,
she was clearly an incredibly bright and precocious young girl.
And she was taken on.
One of her tutors was Mary Somervell,
the polymath mathematician.
And Mary Somerville introduced her to Babbage.
And it struck up.
What was a sort of a lifelong friendship,
it really was a lifelong friendship for for Ada Lovelace, because before she died,
she even asked Babbage to be one of her executors.
So the letters here really show the beginnings of a correspondence
between sort of an established gentleman in his field and a young girl.
But in no way do you see any imbalance in the relationship
you see to Kane and inquiring minds, problem solving,
and both very much feel equal when you read through the correspondence.
So one of the things
that Babbage and Lovelace worked on was the analytical engine.
And Babbage had created a calculating machine of engine,
and he sort of developed it and then started a new project,
which was the analytical engine.
And he gave a lecture about that engine when he was in Italy.
And somebody called Luigi Manor Premiere.
He was actually he was he was quite young at this stage,
was really influenced by Babbage's lecture.
And he published on this machine in French in a journal.
And a couple of years later, Ada Lovelace
translated this article in French by many Brayer, which was essentially
the first publication in English about
about sort of the modern day computing computer.
And I Lovelace, not only did she translate and published the article,
she also added a series of notes alongside her translation,
really building on Babbage's thinking and work.
And so what you see in the letters between Lovelace and Babbage is Lovelace
talking about her, the development of her understanding and thinking
not just about her translation of Manchurians article,
but also about how this analytical machine will develop and how it will work.
And you see throughout the letters,
Lovelace is talking about notes and she'll talk about note A and B and C and D.
And these were the appendages to to this translation and article.
And this is one of the first letters that we've got from Lovelace to Babbage.
And she says, will it do me the favor of showing your calculating machine
to an old friend of mine who is on leave
on leave of absence from India and is to return there immediately?
It is Mr. Henry Sytems, grandson of the Mrs. Siddons.
And already you can start seeing these networks
of connection between Lovelace and Babbage and Siddons.
And you see that throughout this correspondence.
And and Lovelace goes on to say she's very keen to see
the machine and she calls it your old machine.
And therefore, that really shows that they're also
working on something new as well.
She also really interestingly talks about the Bridgwater treaties,
which the ninth Bridgwater treaties, which was Charles Babbage's response
to the eight Bridgwater treaty treaties that were written
on really religion and theology
and actually how they fitted with science and the natural world.
So already this letter is showing
Ada Lovelace how connected she is,
how well read she is, how informed she is, and these all of these letters
continuing to show that sensibility throughout.
Throughout these volumes, there are some notes
by Babbage himself, and this is his notes
on presenting a lot of his thinking to the prime minister, Robert Hill.
So again, you see actually Ada Lovelace in context with the work more widely.
And this volume in particular, I mean, if I if I list
names like Charles Lyell,
Darwin, there's Brunel.
There are hundreds of sort of the most well-known geologists,
mathematicians, astronomers that feature in these volumes.
And they are in incredibly good company with Ada Lovelace.
And her voice holds its own
alongside these other well-known voices.
A lot of this correspondence,
as well as talking about mathematical
and engineering problems, contain
the logistics of working on such problems.
And this letter from the 14th of August, 1842, Lovelace says,
My dear Babbage, will you come Sunday morning, the 21st instead of Saturday?
I find it will suit me better
and pray that you stay till Wednesday morning.
We have friends coming who I'm very desirous that
you should meet in haste a Lovelace.
And she's a Occam Park in Surrey, which was the really beautiful
17th century mansion where she she lived with her husband.
Within this volume, there are other objects, printed objects,
and I think they're just a reminder to set Lovelace and Babbage
again in a wider world of research and interest.
And this is a poster for the observatory in Campton Hill in Kensington
for the Royal Astronomical Society.
And these think things like this are actually interleaved around the letters.
And again, it's just thinking about not just networks of connection, but
actually what they're physically doing in and around London and indeed,
you know, networks across with networked networks across Europe as well.
Every so often within the albums,
you actually see Babbage's response, which is fantastic.
And this one, too, to Ada
Lovelace from the 16th of March 1843.
He says they want to he wants to talk over the notes on Breyer.
And again, it's showing how this conversation that they had about
ages were work. Amanda Brown, indeed, both of them work on the analytical
engine continues over a period of time.
And at this point, in this particular volume
from its July 1843, there's suddenly a large section
of letters by Ada Lovelace to Babbage, and it really starts to show
how they're both working and thinking,
not just about the development of the analytical engine,
but also and indeed her article, her translation of many brayer
and the notes that are attached to it, but also the logistics of publishing
as well, and problems about pagination and other things.
And so, again, it's thinking about Lovelace in context.
She was an absolutely brilliant analytical mind, but she was more than that.
She was actually able to think about why logistical problems at the same time.
These letters also show that
Ed was aware of her own talents,
and in the letter of the 2nd of July 1843, when she's writing to Babbage,
she says, here will be a fine field for my clear, logical
and accurate mind to work its powers upon.
So she's absolutely aware that she is talented in this field,
and she's very much an equal to Babbage.
In a letter on, we think probably the twenty third of July 1843,
because this one's only dated Sunday.
She says, I've worked incessantly and quite successfully all day.
And that's the sense you get through all of these letters.
She she doesn't stop working.
And it's lovely because she talks about a husband and she says Lord
Howe or Lovelace is at the moment kindly inking it all over for me.
And again, she's talking she's talking about the indices of this article.
And the letter goes on.
It starts talking about the different notes that relate to the article.
And they become incredibly detailed.
And they also expand upon
the cards that we use for the machine, the analytical machine,
and actually how we how it was to function as well.
And that's another very important thing about a Lovelace.
She isn't just theoretical what she's writing about.
It can be physically used in what became the first computer.
And that that sort of a really,
really important moment when we think we are where we are today.
What she was doing and talking about in these letters and with Babbage,
that was the beginning of something that we use
almost every second of our days in the modern world.
And those letters go on.
She says there is not much correction for note.
I send you the whole of it.
And obviously with these letters, there were manuscripts
going backwards and forwards.
And I think we always need to remember, actually, that these letters
were the primary way of communicating if you weren't in person
or weren't with somebody in person.
And therefore, actually this backwards and forwards of correspondence physically
and with manuscripts, this is how the information was transmitted
and then how it was actually in the end, ultimately sent sent to publishers for
for her article to be published.
One really interesting thing about the article is that Lovelace's
name doesn't actually appear on it, it's the translation of Amanda Premiere,
but her initials do appear next.
The translations and it's really interesting in this letter here of
which says Thursday we think it's Thursday,
probably the Fourth of July 18th. Forty three.
They're talking about whether whether she says, my husband
or Lord Aoul suggests my signing the translation and the notes,
which he means simply putting at the end of each section
translated by Al and adding to it know each note, the initials Al.
And it's interesting thinking about parallels with anonymity
and thinking about the writer Charlotte Bronte, whose dates
are almost equal to Lovelace's.
And obviously, she was writing underneath with a pseudonym,
Karabell and Lovelace, although she uses her own initials.
And there was less scandal around her identity.
She was a well-known public figure.
Nevertheless, it's interesting that their full names are not out there.
And when you think about the contribution, that both of them are made
in completely different fields. But just how huge a contribution,
the fact that they were
pretty much anonymous when they were working with
their publications are pretty
much anonymous, is quite incredible now to think about.