Ada Lovelace - by Sue Purkiss

 On a recent stay on Exmoor, I came across an article about someone called Ada Lovelace. I had vaguely heard of her, but if you'd asked me why, I wouldn't have been able to tell you. Yet she turns out to have been a fascinating and significant character - in a number of different ways. 

Born in 1815, she was the only legitimate child of Lord George Gordon Byron, who was famous as much for his scandalous, buccaneering lifestyle as for his status as one of the Romantic poets. His shadow would loom over her life - she called her sons Byron and Gordon; yet she never met him: he and her mother, Anne Isabella Milbanke (known as Annabella), separated a month after Ada was born, and he subsequently left England for Europe, never to return. He died in Greece eight years later. Part of the reason for his departure was the amount of scandal surrounding his love life - in particular a probable relationship with his half-sister Augusta. These were the things that pushed him, but there was also something that pulled him: an irresistible craving for adventure, and for a life unshackled by the mores of English society.

Ada Lovelace

Annabella, left with her child, does not seem to have been a particularly affectionate mother, largely handing over the care of Ada to her own mother; but she did have strong views about how the child was to be brought up. Disturbed by Byron's behaviour and black moods, she had come to believe he was insane, and she determined to protect her daughter from insanity by means of education: Ada was to be taught mathematics and logic, and kept away from the dangerous possibilities of literature. One of her tutors was eminent mathemetician and astronomer Mary Somerville - after whom Somerville College in Oxford was later named - and the two became good friends. Ada seemed to have a natural propensity for science: when she was twelve, she decided she was going to learn to fly, and she went about her project methodically and seriously, deciding on suitable materials for wings and studying the anatomy of birds.

Her interest in mathematics continued, and she became friends with the eminent scientist Charles Babbage, working with him on his Analytical Engine, which is often said to be the first computer. Another eminent scientist, Michael Faraday, was impressed by the scientific papers she wrote on the workings of the engine; she saw possibilities as to how it might be used in a way which was over a hundred years ahead of her time. This was a time, remember, when new ideas were bubbling up in all sorts of different spheres: technology, botany, agriculture, ballooning, astronomy, the use of electricity - and, of course, in literature too. Byron himself was one of a group of successful poets including Shelley and Keats, with Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey at a slight remove, all of whom, to a greater or lesser degree, plundered the worlds of science for imagery and ideas.

Ashley Combe House (now demolished)

In 1835, Ada married William, the eighth Baron King, later to become the Earl of Lovelace. The main family home was in Surrey - but they honeymooned at another family house on Exmoor, near Porlock Weir, called Ashley Combe. The house was on the steeply wooded slopes of the north coast, with dramatic views of the Bristol Channel. It's a stunningly beautiful area, and it's no surprise that Ada came to love it. She returned there frequently, and she and William redesigned the house, turning it into an opulent Italianate mansion - and they also improved the woodlands, planting exotic trees and creating dramatic viewpoints and a network of paths: she and Babbage discussed their ideas as they walked along these paths, perhaps ending up at the tiny Anglo-Saxon Culbone Church. These woods are a focus of interest again now: along the cliffs are pockets of temperate rain forest, where trees are hosts for lichens and mosses and ferns, thanks to the damp air which sweeps in from the west. Like many other nature-rich habitats in Britain, temperate rain forests have declined, so any remnants are doubly precious - and Ada played her part in protecting them.

She died young, at only 36 - the same age as her father. Like him, she had a life which didn't follow the expected pattern for her time and milieu. Her name is less well-known than his - yet arguably, she achieved far more. Sadly, she became estranged from her husband just months before her death; her mother swept in to care for her. Rather poignantly, she requested to be buried beside the father she had never known, in Nottinghamshire, near his ancestral home, Newstead Abbey.

A Woman's Heart by Kate Lord Brown

Seeing the river of Novel Reading flowing through the Land of Sentimentality is enough to warm the heart of any writer to boiling point. This Victorian document, purporting to 'Map the Open Country of Woman's Heart' including the 'facilities and dangers to Travellers therein' was - apparently - by 'A Lady'. Though interestingly it was printed by D W Kellogg of Connecticut - I wonder if there's any relation to the founder of the cereal company who was obsessed with regular bowel movements.

Squeezed in at the base of the heart between the Lands of Selfishness and Sentiment, are - almost as an afterthought - some positive attributes. Hope, enthusiasm, discrimination, Good Sense and Prudence. But where is bravery? Or honour? Or sheer sass? In the undulating timeline of history, why have women been sidelined in the Land of Oblivion.

A couple of weeks ago, I taught a hist fic workshop at the Taunton Literary Festival in the wonderful Victorian school room of the Castle Museum. When we were discussing character, I talked about the joy of finding forgotten bits of history - the stories of women Spitfire pilots, women war photographers and women soldiers. One of the students asked 'Are you a feminist'? 

Growing up, it never occurred to me that women were anything but equal with men. We went to career days where we were handed badges with fist punching gender signs and encouraged to sign up as engineers. We were taught to be capable - both to run a home and a business. Did that make us feminists? I don't remember us using the term - feminism seemed to belong to previous generations who had fought for equality. We were told there was no glass ceiling, nothing we could not do or be.

Now, with a teenage daughter of my own, I wonder it that is true. If we redrew the map of a woman's heart today, what would it show? With the film Sufragette, with a fourth wave of New Feminism, what it means to be a woman is once again in the news and a younger generation of women are claiming the word 'feminist'. It feels like there is still a lot to work for.

I was delighted to be asked to contribute a chapter to 'More Passion for Science', a publication about remarkable women in aid of Ada Lovelace Day. Ada was the daughter of Byron, a visionary scientist. I wrote about the women of the Air Transport Auxiliary who inspired my first novel, 'The Beauty Chorus'. It was a moment in history when men and women flew side by side, on equal salary, with equal risks. The more I learnt about them, the greater my admiration became. The women had hearts full of qualities I admire - courage, intelligence, loyalty, passion, bravery, liberty, equality. If that makes me a feminist, then yes I am. How about you? Perhaps in a week when the 'first' British astronaut headed to space according to the press, there is still work to be done. Dr Sharman was the first British astronaut in space, in 1991. But perhaps that doesn't count, or has been overlooked, because Dr Sharman was a woman.

Find out more about Ada Lovelace and the new anthology here.

This is an interesting collection of essays on the subject - I Call Myself A Feminist: The View from Twenty-Five Women Under Thirty