Audrey Bates (programmer)
{{short description|British-American computer programmer (1928–2014)}}
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| name = Audrey Bates
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| birth_name = Margery Audrey Bates
| birth_date = 1928
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| death_date = {{Death year and age|2014|1928}}
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| alma_mater = University of Manchester
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Margery Audrey Bates (Clayton Wallis) (1928–2014) was a British-American computer programmer who, in 1948, wrote the earliest program for lambda calculus calculations on the Manchester Mark I computer.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ancestry.co.uk|title=Birth and death dates for Marjorie Audrey Bates/Wallis|website=ancestry.co.uk}}
Career
Bates graduated with a First in Mathematics from University of Manchester in the summer of 1949.{{Cite book|url=https://www.manturing.net/manufacturing-blog/2019/2/12/women-at-the-console|title=Alan Turing's Manchester.|last=Swinton|first=Jonathan|publisher=Manchester: Infang Publishing. pp. p119.|year=2019|isbn=978-0-9931789-2-4|location=Manchester|pages=}} She was taken on as a research student by Alan Turing, and shared an office with him and Cicely Popplewell.{{Cite book|title=The Alan Turing : the enigma|last=Andrew|first=Hodges|isbn=9781784700089|location=London|oclc=890394618|year = 2014}} In 1950 Bates submitted an MSc thesis entitled "The mechanical solution of a problem in Church's Lambda calculus".{{Cite thesis|publisher=University of Manchester|last=Bates|first=Audrey|title=The mechanical solution of a problem in Church's Lambda calculus|date=1950}} This thesis documents a successful attempt to carry out higher-order logical reasoning on the extremely primitive Manchester Mark I electronic computer.
When the Manchester Mark I was commercialised by the local electronics firm Ferranti, Bates moved to work with them as a programmer. Whilst at Ferranti she composed several sections (some uncredited) of Vivian Bowdon's Faster Than Thought, a popular introduction to electronic computing.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/FasterThanThought|title=Faster Than Thought|last=Bowdon|publisher=Pitman|year=1953|isbn=|location=|pages=}}
In 1952, Bates went to work on the FERUT, the Ferranti Mark I installed at the University of Toronto. In 1955, Bates was pictured supervising the FERUT when it carried out the first automated remote access to a computer.{{Cite web|url=https://magazine.utoronto.ca/campus/history/paving-the-way-for-the-information-highway-calvin-gotlieb-j-n-patterson-hume-beatrice-worsley/|title=Paving the Way for the Information Highway|last=Pedwell|first=Susan|date=2013}}{{Cite web|title=Women at the console|url=https://www.manturing.net/manufacturing-blog/2019/2/12/women-at-the-console|access-date=2021-01-18|website=Alan Turing's Manchester|language=en-GB}}
In 1979, Bates was working as a 'futurist' at a US military think tank.{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/DTIC_ADA083756#page/n63/mode/2up|title=DTIC ADA083756: An Assessment of the Influence of Emerging Social and Economic Trends on the People and Management of the Coast Guard. Volume II|date=December 1979}}
Personal life
Bates married twice and had four children. Her first husband, Ken Wallis, was a fellow Ferranti programmer;Lavington, Simon, Stardust: tales from the early days of computing. Talk to the Computer Conservation Society, Manchester, 19 February 2019. her second husband was Leigh Clayton (1927–2024) and it was under the name of Clayton that Bates published her later work.
References
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Category:British women computer scientists