Bobby Hersom

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Bobby Hersom (born 1929 in Cheshire, England) is a British mathematician and computer scientist known for her early work on computers at Elliott Brothers, Hatfield Polytechnic, and the Rothamstead Agricultural Research Station. [1]

Contents

Life

Hersom was born Roberta Lewis [2] in Cheshire, England, the oldest of three children. She earned a maths degree from the University of Cambridge in 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 married Ed 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

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 processed radar data. [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 for Hatfield Polytechnic, along with her husband. She worked there until retirement. [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Janet Abbate (20 September 2001). "Oral-History:Bobby Hersom". Engineering and Technology History Wiki . Archived from the original on 11 April 2020. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  2. 1 2 Lavington, Simon (2019). Early Computing in Britain: Ferranti Ltd. and Government Funding, 1948-1958. Springer. p. 360. ISBN   9783030151034.
  3. 1 2 "The Round: Cambridge University English Country Dance Club". Archived from the original on 12 April 2020. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 Simon Lavington (May 2011). Moving Targets: Elliott-Automation and the Dawn of the Computer Age in Britain, 1947 – 67. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN   9781848829336.
  5. 1 2 Janet Abbate (2012). Recoding Gender: Women's Changing Participation in Computing. MIT Press. ISBN   9780262304535.
  6. ↑ 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. ISBN   9783319208374 . Retrieved 11 April 2020.
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