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Beatrice Helen Worsley: Canada's Female Computer Pioneer

October-December 2003 (vol. 25 no. 4)

pp. 51-62

1. The year before her death, Worsley donated a number of her early papers and records, from 1946 to 1959, to the Smithsonian Institution. These items are available through the National Museum of American History. The bulk of the material for this article came from two alternate sources. The first is Worsley's own notes, held at the Queen's University Archives. These boxes contain copies of her publications including theses, notes from high school to graduate school, professional correspondence, her teaching notes from both Toronto and Waterloo, and a great deal of administrative paperwork from her final years at Queen's. The second source is sister-in-law Alva Worsley, who provided a wealth of personal information and contributed the photographs.
2. A. Worsley telephone conversation with author, 4 May 2003.
3. K.W. Clarke, "The Story of the Bishop Strachan School," (not published, c. 1950?).
4. Interview form, 29 Feb. 1944, Lieutenant O-79817 Beatrice Helen Worsley military personnel file, Nat'l Archives of Canada.
5. BSS Magazine, Bishop Strachan School yearbook, Toronto, for the years 1934-1939.
6. Nat'l Research Council of Canada Application for Employment, Worsley personnel file.
7. I.R. Pounder to M.N. Bedard, Nat'l Research Council, Worsley personnel file.
8. Torontonensis, Univ. of Toronto yearbook, 1944.
9. By 1944 research or lab work would not have been an entirely unusual request; when the Canadian Wrens were formed in late 1942, the women were limited to clerical duties, but their role in the navy was quickly expanded to include almost all of the men's duties except, normally, serving at sea. See "History," The Wren Association of Toronto, www.naval-museum.mb.ca/historyexhib10.htm .
10. J.R. Longard, Knots, Volts and Decibels: An Informal History of the Naval Research Establishment, 1940-1967, Defense Research Establishment Atlantic, 1993.
11. J.M. Coade, "Wren Gets Plenty of Time at Sea," not published, 1946.
12. B. Worsley fonds, Queen's Univ. Archives, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, (hereafter referred to as Worsley Archives) box 1, folders 18-21; box 2, folders 1-4.
13. B.H. Worsley, A Mathematical Survey of Computing Devices with an Appendix on Error Analysis of Differential Analyzers, master's thesis, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., 1947.
14. J.N. Vardalas, The Computer Revolution in Canada: Building National Technological Competence, MIT Press, 2001, pp. 16-43.
15. M.R. Williams, "UTEC and Ferut: The University of Toronto's Computation Centre," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 16, no. 2, Summer 1994, p. 5.
16. Ibid., p. 6.
17. D. Hartree and A. Porter, "The Construction and Operation of a Model Differential Analyzer," Memoirs and Proc. Manchester Literary and Philosophical Soc., vol. 79, 1935, pp. 51-74.
18. B.H. Worsley, Construction of a Model Differential Analyzer, tech. report, Worsley Archives, box 3, folder 10, "Toronto Computation Centre,"10 Sept. 1948.
19. A. Porter, "Building the Manchester Differential Analyzers: A Personal Reflection," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 25, no. 2, Apr.-June 2003, pp. 86-92.
20. A photograph of this analyzer can be found in Toronto's The Globe and Mail,15 Dec. 1951.
21. Readers are again encouraged to consult the Vardalas and Williams works for technical and political details surrounding the construction of the UTEC and its replacement, the Ferut.
22. The original teletype paper output can be found at the Smithsonian Am. History Archives, in the Beatrice Worsley Collection, signed and dated by Worsley.
23. B.H. Worsley, The EDSAC Demonstration: Report on a Conference on High Speed Automatic Calculating Machines, Cambridge University Mathematical Laboratory, January 1950, tech. report, available in B. Randall, ed., The Origins of Digital Computers, 2nd ed., Springer-Verlag, 1975, pp. 395-401.
24. M.V. Wilkes, Memoirs of a Computer Pioneer, MIT Press, 1985, p. 147.
25. J.P. Stanley and M.V. Wilkes, Table of the Reciprocal of the Gamma Function for Complex Argument, Computation Centre, University of Toronto, 1950.
26. M.R. Williams, "UTEC and Ferut…", pp. 7-8.
27. Worsley Archives, box 2, folders 6-10.
28. C. Froese Fischer, "Reminiscenses at the End of the Century," Molecular Physics, vol. 98, no. 16, 2000, p. 1050.
29. B.A. Griffith, "My Early Days in Toronto," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 16, no. 2, Summer 1994, p. 56.
30. Ibid., p. 62.
31. B.H. Worsley, Serial Programming for Real and Idealized Digital Calculating Machines, doctoral dissertation, 1951, Worsley Archives, box 2, folder 18.
32. B.H. Worsley, "On the Second Order Correction Terms to Values of Gravity Measured at Sea," Proc. Cambridge Philosophical Soc., vol. 48, no. 4, 1952, pp. 718-732.
33. B.H. Worsley, Serial Programming for Real and Idealized…, doctoral dissertation, Worsley Archives, box 2, folder 18, p. 133.
34. A. Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma, Walker&Co., 2000, p. 317.
35. S. Millman ed. A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: Communication Sciences (1925-1980), AT&T Bell Laboratories, 1984, pp. 56-58.
36. Email from David and Joyce Wheeler to author, 1 June 2003. David Wheeler was a graduate student in the Mathematical Laboratory at the time and one of the first EDSAC programmers.
37. S.E. Lee telephone conversation with author, 26 May 2003. Lee, a Canadian and professor in the Computer Laboratory at Cambridge, UK, in the 1990s, confirms that at the EDSAC 50th anniversary celebration in Apr. 1999 few could remember Worsley.
38. Cambridge University Reporter,12 Nov. 1975.
39. Univ. of Cambridge, Statutes and Ordinances of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988, p. 941.
40. B.H. Worsley, "Computer Training at Toronto," Proc. First Conf. Training Personnel for the Computing Machine Field, A.W. Jacobson, ed., Wayne Univ. Press, 1955, pp. 71-72.
41. For a more detailed look at the history of the Ferut and Transcode, see J.N. Patterson Hume, "Development of Systems Software for the Ferut Computer at the University of Toronto, 1952 to 1955," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 16, no. 2, Summer 1994, pp. 13-19.
42. J.N.P. Hume and B.H. Worsley, "Transcode: A System of Automatic Coding for Ferut," J. ACM, vol. 2, no. 4, 1955, pp. 243-252; B.H. Worsley and J.N.P. Hume, "A New Tool for Physicists," Physics in Canada, vol. 10, no. 4, Summer 1955, pp. 11-20.
43. M.R. Williams, "UTEC and Ferut…", p. 11.
44. B.H. Worsley, "Solutions of a Nonlinear Differential Equation Arising in the Theory of Diffusion Flames," Mathematical Tables and Other Aids to Computation, vol. 9, no. 51, 1955, pp. 112-116, and B.H. Worsley, "Numerical Representation in Fixed-Point Computers," Computers and Automation, vol. 4, no. 5, 1955, pp. 10-13.
45. J.F. Hart and B.H. Worsley, "Self-Consistent Field Calculations at the University of Toronto," Proc. First Canadian Conf. for Computing and Data Processing, Univ. of Toronto Press, 1958, pp. 298-306.
46. D.R. Hartree, The Calculation of Atomic Structures, John Wiley&Sons, 1957.
47. B.H. Worsley, "The Self-Consistent Field with Exchange for Neon by Ferut Program," Canadian J. Physics, vol. 36, 1958, pp. 289-299; B.H. Worsley, "Radial Wave Functions with Exchange for V2+, Kr, and Ag+," Proc. Royal Soc., series A, vol. 247, 1958, pp. 390-399; J.F. Hart and B.H. Worsley, "Approximate Wave Functions of Pb+++by the Method of Self-Consistent Field Without Exchange," Canadian J. Physics, vol. 37, 1959, pp. 983-988; and B.H. Worsley, "A Note on the Wave Functions of Krypton," Proc. Royal Soc., series A, vol. 276, no. 1328, 1962, p. 146.
48. D.B.W. Reid, L.C. Lax, and B.H. Worsley, "Error Estimation in the Transfer Rates of Plasma Constituents," Proc. 2nd Canadian Conf. for Computing and Data Processing, Univ. of Toronto Press, 1960, pp. 158-174, and L.C. Lax and B.H. Worsley, "Selection of a Numerical Technique for Analyzing Experimental Data of the Decay Type, etc.," Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, vol. 59, no. 1, 1962, pp. 1-24.
49. Worsley Archives, box 3, folders 31-33.
50. Worsley Archives, box 4, folder 2.
51. B.H. Worsley, "Blueprint for a Library," Computers and Automation, vol. 8, no. 4, Apr. 1959, p. 17.
52. R. Bregzis, C.C. Gotlieb, and C. Moore, "The Beginning of Automation in the University of Toronto Library, 1963-1972," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 24, no. 2, Apr.-June 2002, pp. 50-70, and Worsley Archives, box 3, folders 25-27.
53. Worsley Archives box 3 folders25-27.
54. G.J. Groen, "An Information Retrieval System for References and Abstracts in the Computer Sciences," Third Canadian Conf. for Computing and Data Processing, Univ. of Toronto Press, 1962, pp. 136-143.
55. Z. Stachniak, "The Making of the MCM/70 Microcomputer," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 25, no. 2, April-June 2003, p. 64.
56. Letter from Dr. Kutt to Dr. Worsley, 25 Jan. 1967, Worsley Archives, box 4, folder 27.
57. J. Lindsay telephone conversation with author, 26 May 2003.
58. "Canadian Computer Census," Canadian Information Processing Soc. Bull., 1974, p. 76.
59. A. Worsley email to author, 13 May 2003.