This year’s story is set at the end of Ada Lovelace’s short life but it probably won’t be the last time we see her in the National Cipher Challenge. Harry and Jodie are always exploring the archive for new stories to tell and there must be more for them to find. Something they didn’t expect when researching this year’s competition was that there is actually a photograph of Ada Lovelace1 in the archives at the Bodleian Library. A genuine, honest to goodness portrait of Ada taken by the photographer Antoine Claudet in 1843 when Ada was writing her famous paper on Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Depending on your point of view it is either astonishing that we can look so far in to the past and see our forebears, or a reminder that the events of this story were not so long ago. http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/adalovelace/
- We stole this image from an article at and very much hope that it is in the spirit of fair use. We understand it was published there with the permission of G M Bond. If anyone knows how we can ask for permission to legally post it here, then please get in touch! ↩︎