 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 is 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 36. 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 had very little influence on her as she was growing up, and her mother really encouraged that Ada pursued her interest in mathematics, which she felt was somehow a counterbalance to the madness of poetry. So Ada Lovelace, she was clearly an incredibly bright and precocious young girl, and she was taken on one of her tutors was Mary Somerville, the polymath mathematician, and Mary Somerville introduced her to Babbage, and it struck up what was a sort of lifelong friendship, it really was a lifelong friendship 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 two keen 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 on engine, and he sort of developed it and then started the new project, which was the analytical engine. And he gave a lecture about that engine when he was in Italy, and somebody called Luigi Menabrea, who was actually, 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 Menabrea, which was essentially the first publication in English about sort of the modern day computing computer. Ada Lovelace, not only did she translate and publish 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 Menabrea's 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 this translation and article. And this is one of the first letters that we've got from Lovelace to Babbage, and she says, will you do me the favour 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 Sidden's grandson of the Mrs Sidden's, and already you can start seeing these networks of connection between Lovelace and Babbage and Sidden's, and you see that throughout this correspondence. 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 Bridgewater Treaties, the ninth Bridgewater Treaties, which was Charles Babbage's response to the eight Bridgewater 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 all of these letters continue 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 Peel. So again you see actually Ada Lovelace in context with the work more widely, and this volume in particular, I mean if I list names like Charles Lyell, Darwin, there's Brunel, there are hundreds 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 here. I'm very desirous that you should meet, in haste, Ada Lovelace. And she's at Ockham Park in Surrey, which was the really beautiful 17th century mansion where 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 of Encampton Hill in Kensington for the Royal Astronomical Society. And these 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 networks across Europe as well. Every so often within the albums you actually see Babbage's response, which is fantastic. And this one to Ada Lovelace from the 16th of March 1843. He says he wants to talk over the notes on Menabrea. And again it's showing how this conversation that they had about Ada's work on Menabrea and indeed both of their work on the analytical engine continues over a period of time. And at this point in this particular volume, it's 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 Menabrea 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 wider logistical problems at the same time. These letters also show that Ada was aware of her own talents and in a 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 in equal to Babbage. In a letter on we think probably the 23rd 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 doesn't stop working. And it's lovely because she talks about a husband and she says Lord El or Lovelace is at the moment kindly inking it all over for me. And again 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 it was to function as well. And that's another really important thing about Ada Lovelace, she isn't just theoretical what she's writing about, it can be physically used in what became the first computer and that's 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 as the letters go on she says there is not much correction for note A I send you the whole of it and obviously with these letters the 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 the manuscripts this is how the information was transmitted and then how it was actually in the end ultimately sent to publishers 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 Menabrea but her initials do appear next to translations and it's really interesting in this letter here of what it says Thursday, we think it's Thursday probably the 4th of July 1843. They're talking about whether she says my husband or Lord El suggests my signing the translation and the notes with which he means simply putting at the end of each section translated by AAL and adding to it each note the initials AAL. And it's interesting thinking about parallels and 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 in Carabelle and Lovelace, although she uses her own initials and there was less scandal around her identity and 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 have 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 were pretty much anonymous is quite incredible now to think about.