An impossible life has come to an end: On the death of Dame Stephanie Shirley
As an IT entrepreneur and President of the British Computer Society, "Steve" Shirley left his mark on early computer history. Shirley died at the age of 91.
(Image: Screenshot/This Is Engineering/heise medien)
Dame Stephanie Shirley died on Saturday in Henley-on-Thames after a short and serious illness, it has now been announced. The IT entrepreneur was 91 years old. With her company Freelance Programmers (later F International, then Xansa), which initially employed only women, she made IT history in a male-dominated environment.
Of her company's first 300 employees, 297 were women, for whom she developed flexible working hours and childcare models. As a founding member and temporary president of the British Computer Society, she campaigned for women in IT, and as a patron of the arts, she supported numerous projects for autistic young people and adults with her Shirley Foundation.
Born in Dortmund
Dame Stephanie Shirley was born Vera Stephanie Buchthal in Dortmund on September 16, 1933. As a Jew, her father had already been removed from his position as a district court judge by this time. The family initially moved to Austria. After the annexation of Austria in 1939, Vera and her sister were sent on a Kindertransport to Great Britain and taken in by foster parents. Her parents also managed to escape later.
When Vera started secondary school, her mathematical talent was noticed, which meant that she was able to take part in mathematics lessons at a boys' grammar school. She also attended mathematics courses at an evening school. In 1951, Vera Buchthal became a British citizen as Stephanie Brook and began studying mathematics. She eventually worked at a Royal Mail research institute, where she was involved in the construction of an electronic random number generator, among other things.
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In 1959, she married Derek Shirley, who also worked at the research institute. Stephanie Shirley then moved to the company International Computers and Tabulators, which built the ICT 1301 transistor computer. Stephanie Shirley tested its software, but soon left the company after being rudely interrupted by a colleague during a consultation. In her memoirs "An Impossible Life", she speaks of having failed because of a "glass ceiling".
In 1962, she founded the software company Freelance Programmers: "I had six pounds of capital, a dining table, a telephone line that we shared with a neighbor, who fortunately hardly used it, and another crazy idea: only women should work for me, all on a freelance basis and from home." The company did well after the Guardian reported on "Mrs. Steve Shirley's" unusual company in 1964. In fact, Stephanie Shirley signed her business correspondence as Steve Shirley.
Freelance Programmers
Freelance Programmers developed slowly but successfully with a handful of employees and many freelance programmers. While turnover in 1964 was 7,000 pounds, by 1970 it had risen to 50,000 pounds and by 1976 to 739,000 pounds. The women (and a few men, because the Sex Discrimination Act came into force in 1975) broke the million barrier in 1977, reaching ten million in 1987. When the company went public in 1996, 70 female employees became millionaires thanks to the company shares sold by Shirley. Stephanie Shirley became the third richest woman in the UK with 150 million pounds and used the money to set up the Steve Shirley Foundation.
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By this time, she had handed over the management of the company to Hillary Cooper, who increased turnover to 450 million pounds. Shirley had other plans, such as becoming the first president of the British Computer Society, where she denounced sexism in the industry.
Her son Gilles, who was born in 1963 and died in 1998, suffered from severe autism and epilepsy and had to be cared for in a home. Accordingly, her foundation donated a lot of money to projects such as Autism at Kingwood and Prior's Court.
She was ennobled as Dame Stephanie Shirley in 2001 and admitted to the Order of the Companions of Honor in 2017. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath in 2006 and from the Open University in 2009.
(mki)
