ITV’s Victoria: Who was Ada Lovelace and
did she really catch the eye of Prince Albert?
Emerald Fennell plays the Victorian computer
programmer in ITV's royal drama
Who is the “lady mathematician” in episode
two of Victoria?
None other than Ada Lovelace!
Series creator Daisy Goodwin introduces us
to a vital figure in early computing – but
Queen Victoria herself is not amused by how
much her husband seems to like this woman.
Who was Ada Lovelace?
Ada Lovelace is often considered to be the
first computer programmer – before computers
even really existed.
Born in 1815, Lovelace was the only legitimate
child of poet Lord Byron, though her parents
separated a month after her birth and she
never met her father.
Her mother Anabella encouraged Ada’s interest
in maths and science over the arts to avoid
what she saw as Byron’s “madness”, but
Ada looked up to him and described her work
as “poetical science”.
Eventually, her work led to a friendship and
working relationship with Charles Babbage,
the creator of the earliest mechanical computers
including the Analytical Engine – and the
man with whom Lovelace made history.
You see, Lovelace wrote a paper in the 1840s
imagining the potential of Babbage’s machines,
including the idea that they could compose
music and the original computer algorithm
(you’re welcome, Google), now widely considered
to be the world’s first computer program.
Sadly, Lovelace never got to try out her ideas
after falling out with Babbage and dying young,
but she went on to inspire early computer
pioneers including a certain Alan Turing (who
found her paper during his research).
Turing is of course the mathematician whose
codebreaking computer helped end the Second
World War, and is widely considered to be
the father of computer science and artificial
intelligence.
Who plays Ada Lovelace in Victoria?
Emerald Fennell, who is also known for her
role as Nurse Patsy Mount in Call the Midwife.
Did Victoria really get jealous about Prince
Albert’s relationship with Ada Lovelace?
What we do know is that Charles Babbage and
Ada Lovelace did try to enlist Prince Albert’s
support to build their machine.
Lovelace even tried to become a science advisor
or tutor to Albert, who at the time was apparently
looking to serve as a patron to a grand scientific
project.
The plot came to nothing, but this does indicate
that they likely crossed paths.
Albert made it clear that he enjoyed the company
of scientists and pursued his own interests,
even collecting scientific instruments and
establishing a private observatory at Kew.
But he also seems to have been more interested
in Babbage than Lovelace.
The prince visited Babbage to see the invention
at his workshop in Dorset Street in 1842,
but ultimately he never took the risk of promoting
the Analytical Engine.
Babbage was not even invited to participate
in Albert’s Great Exhibition of the Industry
of All Nations in 1851.
Ada Lovelace addressing Prince Albert and
Queen Victoria (ITV)
And could Victoria have been suspicious of
Albert and Ada?
This is less clear, but one thing is for sure:
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a tempestuous
marriage.
While they were devoted to each other as husband
and wife, and while they had a strong sexual
relationship, they also had terrible rows.
Victoria resented being robbed of her powers
as queen when her pregnancies forced her to
take a back seat, and when she had temper
tantrums, Albert feared she might have inherited
the madness of King George, according to the
historian Jane Ridley.
Another thing: while in the series Victoria
is unaware that Ada Lovelace is Lord Byron’s
daughter until after they’ve been introduced,
in reality she probably knew this very well.
A diary entry for 1839, the year before she
married Albert, mentions a conversation with
Lord M: “Talked of Lady Byron, and Lady
Lovelace.”
