Margery Audrey Bates (Clayton Wallis) (1928-2014) was a British-American computer programmer who, in 1948, wrote the earliest program for

lambda calculus Lambda calculus (also written as ''λ''-calculus) is a formal system in mathematical logic for expressing computation based on function abstraction and application using variable binding and substitution. It is a universal model of computation t ...

calculations on the

Manchester Mark I The Manchester Mark 1 was one of the earliest stored-program computers, developed at the Victoria University of Manchester, England from the Manchester Baby (operational in June 1948). Work began in August 1948, and the first version was operat ...

computer.

Career

Bates graduated with a First in Mathematics from

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...

in the summer of 1949. She was taken on as a research student by

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical c ...

, and shared an office with him and

Cicely Popplewell Cicely Mary Williams (née Popplewell) 29 October 1920 – 20 June 1995 was a British software engineer who worked with Alan Turing on the Manchester Mark 1 computer. Early life and education Popplewell was born on 29 October 1920 in Stockpo ...

. In 1950 Bates submitted an MSc thesis entitled "The mechanical solution of a problem in Church's Lambda calculus". 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 Ferranti or Ferranti International plc was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm was known ...

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

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

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bates, Audrey British women computer scientists Alumni of the University of Manchester 1928 births 2014 deaths