Bobby Hersom
Bobby Hersom(born 1929 inCheshire, England) is a British mathematician and computer scientist known for her early work on computers atElliott Brothers,Hatfield Polytechnic,and the Rothamstead Agricultural Research Station.[1]
Life
[edit]Hersom was born Roberta Lewis[2]in Cheshire, England, the oldest of three children. She earned a maths degree from theUniversity of Cambridgein 1950. She then earned a teaching degree in 1951.[1]She was a member of The Round, an English Country Dance Club while at Cambridge.[3][4]: 267
She marriedEd Hersom,who she met through work, in 1954.[5]: 116
Her son Colin also attended Cambridge[3]and was a mathematician and her daughter was a farmer.[1]She regretted having to quit her work as a computer scientist after her first child was born, which meant she could only work freelance.[6]
Her husband died in 2002.[4]: 302
Career
[edit]After earning her teaching degree, Hersom worked as a teacher, but realized she didn't enjoy that work.[1]
She started working in the Theory Division at Elliott Brothers in Borehamwood, UK, in 1953.[4]: 262, 267 There she wrote software programs for Nicholas, a research computer. Some of the software she developed processedradardata.[1]In 1954, she left that job to start her family.[5]: 116 [2]
Hersom then worked for Rothamstead for 11 years.[1]She later worked as a consultant forHatfield Polytechnic,along with her husband. She worked there until retirement.[1]
References
[edit]- ^abcdefgJanet Abbate(20 September 2001)."Oral-History:Bobby Hersom".Engineering and Technology History Wiki.Archivedfrom the original on 11 April 2020.Retrieved11 April2020.
- ^abLavington, Simon (2019).Early Computing in Britain: Ferranti Ltd. and Government Funding, 1948-1958.Springer. p. 360.ISBN9783030151034.
- ^ab"The Round: Cambridge University English Country Dance Club".Archivedfrom the original on 12 April 2020.Retrieved11 April2020.
- ^abcSimon Lavington (May 2011).Moving Targets: Elliott-Automation and the Dawn of the Computer Age in Britain, 1947 – 67.Springer Science & Business Media.ISBN9781848829336.
- ^abJanet Abbate (2012).Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing.MIT Press.ISBN9780262304535.
- ^Morley, Chantal; McDonnell, Martina (December 2014)."The Gendering of the Computing Field in Finland, France and the United Kingdom Between 1960 and 1990".Connecting Women: Women, Gender and ICT in Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century.doi:10.1007/978-3-319-20837-4_8.ISBN9783319208374.Retrieved11 April2020.