Bobby Hersom

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]

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]

References
  1. 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. Lavington, Simon (2019). Early Computing in Britain: Ferranti Ltd. and Government Funding, 1948-1958. Springer. p. 360. ISBN 9783030151034.
  3. "The Round: Cambridge University English Country Dance Club". Archived from the original on 12 April 2020. Retrieved 11 April 2020.
  4. 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. 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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