Audrey Bates (programmer)

Marjorie 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.[1]

Audrey Bates
Born
Marjorie Audrey Bates

1928
Died2014 (aged 85–86)
Alma materUniversity of Manchester

Career

Bates graduated with a First in Mathematics from University of Manchester in the summer of 1949.[2] She was taken on as a research student by Alan Turing, and shared an office with him and Cicely Popplewell.[3] In 1950 Bates submitted an MSc thesis entitled "The mechanical solution of a problem in Church's Lambda calculus".[4] This thesis documents a successful attempt to carry out higher-order logical reasoning on the extremely primitive Manchester Mark I electronic computer.[3][2]

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.[2][5]

In 1952, Bates went to work on the FERUT, the Ferranti Mark I installed at the University of Toronto.[2] In 1955, Bates was pictured supervising the FERUT when it carried out the first automated remote access to a computer.[6]

In 1979, Bates was working as a 'futurist' at a US military think tank.[7]

Personal life

Bates married twice and had four children.[1] Her first husband, Ken Wills, was a fellow Ferranti programmer[8]; her second husband was Leigh Clayton and it was under the name of Clayton that Bates published her later work.

References
  1. "Birth and death dates for Marjorie Audrey Bates/Wallis". ancestry.co.uk.
  2. Swinton, Jonathan (2019). Alan Turing's Manchester. Manchester: Manchester: Infang Publishing. pp. p119. ISBN 978-0-9931789-2-4.
  3. Andrew, Hodges (2014). The Alan Turing : the enigma. London. ISBN 9781784700089. OCLC 890394618.
  4. Bates, Audrey (1950). The mechanical solution of a problem in Church's Lambda calculus (Thesis). University of Manchester.
  5. Bowdon (1953). Faster Than Thought. Pitman.
  6. Pedwell, Susan (2013). "Paving the Way for the Information Highway".
  7. "DTIC ADA083756: An Assessment of the Influence of Emerging Social and Economic Trends on the People and Management of the Coast Guard. Volume II". December 1979.
  8. Lavington, Simon, Stardust: tales from the early days of computing. Talk to the Computer Conservation Society, Manchester, 19 February 2019.
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