Compact Biographies

“Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others” – Amelia Earhart

Born on 24 July 1897 at her grandfather’s home in Atchison,

Kansas, Amelia Mary Earhart was the daughter of Samuel Stanton Earhart, a claims

officer for the Rock Island Railroad and his wife Amy. She grew up with her

sister Grace Muriel Earhart, who was affectionately known as Pidge and was two

years Amelia’s junior with the two of them known to regularly go off exploring

around their local neighbourhood, climbing trees and even hunting rats with a

rifle.

In 1904 at the age of around 7, Amelia, with her uncle’s

help, fixed a home-made ramp to the roof of the tool shed. Using a wooden box

as a sled, Amelia described her first trip off the end of the ramp to her sister

as “just like flying” even though up to that point she had never seen an aircraft.

That changed though after her father was transferred to Des Moines in Iowa in 1907, although the children didn’t move there permanently until 1909. During the intervening period, the girls were homeschooled by their mother with the help of a governess and Amelia remembered being very fond of reading lots of books in the family library where she spent many hours. When they did join their parents in Des Moines, it would be the first time that the two sisters received any formal education, with Amelia Earhart entering the seventh grade at the age of 12.

Amelia Earhart saw her first aircraft at the 1907 Iowa State Fair and Amelia’s father tried and failed to get the two sisters to take a ride but Amelia was more interested in the merry-go-round, describing the rickety old biplane as “a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting.”

Although finances seemed to be improving following the move to Des Moines, things took a turn for the worst as Edwin’s drinking turned into alcoholism and this led to him being forced to retire in 1914. He intended to recover from his addiction and sought treatment, but the railroad wouldn’t have him back. Around the same time, Amelia Earhart’s grandmother Amelia Otis died leaving a considerable estate that was put into trust to protect it from Edwin’s drinking. Amelia described this period of her life as the end of her childhood as the Otis house and contents were sold off.

Following an attempt by Edwin to return to work, a proposed move to Springfield, Missouri came to nothing and so Amy took the two girls to live with friends in Chicago where Amelia eventually enrolled at High Park High School as it had the best to offer in terms of its science classes, which Amelia had expressed an interest in but unfortunately her time there wasn’t a happy one. Amelia Earhart graduated in 1916 and started to look up to women who had found success in predominantly male roles, keeping a scrapbook about their exploits in fields such as mechanical engineering, law and film production.

Although Amelia Earhart began a college course at the Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania, she soon dropped out and visited her sister in Toronto during Christmas 1917 where she witnessed wounded soldiers returning home from war. This moved her to train as a nurse’s aide with the Red Cross and began working at the Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto where she prepared food and handed out prescription medication.

As the Spanish Flu took hold in 1918 and reached Toronto, Amelia Earhart’s nursing duties became more intensive but this ultimately led to her being hospitalised herself suffering from pneumonia and sinusitis. She underwent a number of small operations designed to resolve the sinusitis problem which were unsuccessful and she...

“All I know is just how to make people laugh” – Stan Laurel

Born on 16 June 1890 in Ulverston, Lancashire, England, Arthur

Stanley Jefferson, known later to the world as Stan Laurel, was the son of a

theatre manager from Bishop Auckland called Arthur Jefferson and an actress

from Ulverston called Margaret. He was born in his grandparents’ house and

spent a lot of time with his grandmother Sarah growing up as both of his

parents were very busy with theatre life.

Stanley was initially educated at King James I Grammar

School in Bishop Auckland before he moved with his parents to Glasgow, where he

attended Rutherglen Academy.

Growing up around the theatre, it was natural for him to become

involved and at the age of 16, he gave his first professional performance in pantomime

and music hall, during which he adopted one of his famous comedy devices, the

humble bowler hat.

By the time he turned 20 Stan Laurel joined the acting troupe of Fred Karno, the pioneer of slapstick, and toured the USA. During this time he was, for a short time, an understudy to one of the other actors in the troupe, the one and only Charlie Chaplin.

The First World War had begun whilst Stanley was in the USA and

although he registered for military service on 5 June 1917, he was never called

up due to deafness and his status as a resident alien.

In 1921, he met his future long-term comedy partner, Oliver Hardy when they both appeared in the film The Lucky Dog. At this point in time though, neither of them knew what the future would hold for them.

Around the same time, Stan Laurel met Mae Dahlberg and the pair stayed together for around six years although they were never married. It was she that suggested that he change his stage name, which at the time was Stanley Jefferson. She said that it was unlucky due to it having thirteen letters, and so Stanley settled on the name Laurel. Shortly afterward, he landed his first film contract and appeared alongside Mae in the film Mud and Sand in 1922. The contract didn’t last long due to a reorganisation at the Universal studio, but it was enough for Stanley to decide to leave the theatre and concentrate on film making.

His next contract was for 12 films with Joe Rock although

one stipulation was that Mae Dahlberg was not allowed to be in any of them as

Rock thought that she was having a negative effect on Laurel’s career. She wasn’t

going to go away lightly though, and her meddling prompted Rock to offer her

cash and a one-way ticket back to her home in Australia, which she accepted in

1925. The 12 films were all 2-reelers. Produced during 1924 and 1925 they

included West of Hot Dog, The Snow Hawk and The Sleuth.

On 13 August 1926, Stan Laurel married his first wife Lois

Nelson and their daughter, also called Lois was born on 10 December the

following year. The couple would then go on to have a son whom they called

Stanley in May 1930 but unfortunately, he was born two months premature and

only lived for nine days. Laurel and Lois would go on to divorce in December

1934.

Stan Laurel’s next contract was with the Hal Roach studio where he met up again with Oliver Hardy who was working on a film called Yes, Yes, Nanette under the name of Babe Hardy. Stan Laurel had initially signed with Hal Roach with the intention of writing and directing but when Oliver Hardy was injured and hospitalised, Stan filled in for him. When Hardy returned to work,

“Live without seeing, but be what you are.” – Louis Braille

Louis Braille Biography

Born on 4 January 1809, Louis Braille was from a small town called Coupvray, which is about twenty miles to the East of Paris, France. He was the youngest of four children born to Simon-René, who was a leatherer and maker of horse tack and Monique Braille. His two older sisters were Monique Catherine and Marie Céline and his brother was called Louis-Simon.

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The young Louis was always interested in his father’s work and from the time when he could first walk, he could be found in his father’s workshop. One day when he was only three years old, Louis was playing with an awl and was trying to make a hole in a piece of leather, when the tool slipped and struck him in the eye. A local physician did the best he could with the boy’s injury and then arranged for him to see a specialist in Paris the next day. However, the surgeon could do nothing else to help and due to a severe infection which eventually spread to the other eye, by the age of five, Louis Braille was completely blind.

His parents did the best they could to raise their son to be as normal as possible and he learned to get around with the use of a cane which his father made for him. As he grew older, Louis seemed to accept his disability and made efforts to be the best that he could be which impressed local teachers, leading to him being accepted into higher education in 1819 at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris, on of the first specialist schools for blind students in the world.

The children at the school were taught to read by a system that had been created by Valentin Haüy, the founder of the school. Haüy wasn’t blind himself but had dedicated to helping those that were. Haüy’s method involved using heavily embossed letters on thick paper which the children were taught to read by tracing the letters with their fingers and thus read the same words as any sighted child, albeit a lot more slowly. The books that were available to the children were few in number as the process to create them was complicated. Also due to their nature, the books didn’t contain a huge amount of information and some were large and heavy. The other thing that was lacking was a way for the children to not only read but also to write.

When the school opened it had three books, and Louis Braille read them all continuously. He also paid attention during oral lessons and was an avid learner. When the school curriculum came to an end, Braille, due to his proficiency as a student, was asked to stay on as a teacher’s aide. By 1833, he had achieved the position of professor at the school and taught a number of subjects including history, geometry, and algebra. Braille was also very good at music and learned to play the cello and the organ. His musical talents would be recognized all over France during his later life as he would travel and play the organ at lots of different churches.

The limits of Haüy’s system were obvious to Braille and he was determined to improve upon it, however, Braille came across a system that would ultimately turn out to revolutionize how blind people would learn to read. In 1821, Louis Braille became aware of a system developed by Captain Charles Barbier of the French Army, who called it night writing. This system involved a code of dots and dashes that were impressed into thick paper and which could be read by using the fingers meaning that soldiers who needed to communicate written orders in the dead of night could do so with no need for any lighting whatsoever.

Over the next three years, Braille worked on making improvements to the system to make it more efficient and less complex. By 1824 he was finished and published the system the following year.

In the first episode of season 8 of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast we take a brief look at the life of the world's first computer programmer - Ada Lovelace

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“The Analytical Engine does not occupy common ground with mere ‘calculating machines.’ It holds a position wholly its own, and the considerations it suggests are more interesting in their nature” – Ada Lovelace.

Ada Lovelace Biography

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was born in London, England on 10 December 1815. She was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron, and his wife Anne Isabella, the Lady Byron.

Lord Byron was hoping that he would be blessed with a son as until now he had no legitimate children, but he was to be left with no male heir following Ada’s birth, as the couple were in the process of separating and only a month later, Ada Lovelace saw her father for the last time when Lady Byron left the family home to live with her parents at Kirkby Mallory, taking Ada with her. Lord Byron formally separated from his wife when he signed the associated documents on 21 April. He left England forever only a few days later. Although English law at the time granted full custody of children to the father in cases of separation, Byron seemed not to be interested and left the girl in the care of her mother.

Ada Lovelace never had a relationship with her father as he died when she was eight and unfortunately she also did not have a close relationship with her mother being left in the care of Lady Milbanke, Lady Byron’s mother. Lady Byron only asked about her welfare occasionally in order to keep up appearances and as Ada grew into a teenager, she had her watched by close friends in order to identify any evidence of moral deviation which she was convinced Ada would inherit from her father.

Ada was often ill as a child, suffering from debilitating headaches and was even paralysed in 1829 after contracting measles following which she was confined to bed for almost a year. Despite her illnesses, she developed an interest in mathematics and technology and when she was twelve, she declared that she wanted to fly. Instead of this being just the fanciful notion of a child, Ada Lovelace actually set about methodically constructing apparatus that would help her to do so starting with wings in February 1828. In order to ensure that the wings would be of the correct size and weight, she studied the anatomy of birds and researched a number of different materials from which she might construct them. During the process, Ada also wrote a book which she called Flyology within which she illustrated some of her findings.

In 1833, Ada Lovelace had an affair with one of her tutors. She tried to elope with him, but relatives of the tutor recognised Ada and informed her mother of the couple’s whereabouts. Lady Byron, with the help of her friends, covered up the affair due to the scandal that it would cause.

In the same year, Ada became friends with another of her tutors, Mary Somerville, who introduced her to Charles Babbage. She also became acquainted with other influential people at the time including Michael Faraday and Charles Dickens and at the age of only seventeen she was presented at court and by 1834, she was a court regular.

A year later, on 8 July Ada Lovelace married William, 8th Baron King, thereby becoming Lady King. The couple spent their time at three different homes, one in Surrey, one in London and also a Scottish estate on Loch Torridon. The couple also had a Summer retreat at Worthy Manor in Somerset, which had been the setting for their honeymoon.

The couple went on to have three children together, Byron in 1836,

In the tenth and final episode of season 7 of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast we take a brief look at the life of the man who is considered to be the father of modern computing - Charles Babbage

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In episode 9 of the seventh season of 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a brief look at the life of one of the World's favourite children's authors and illustrators - Beatrix Potter.

Please consider supporting the show by buying me a coffee at http://www.5minutebiographies.com/coffee/ - Thanks!

“It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that some portion of the neglect of science in England, may be attributed to the system of education we pursue. – Charles Babbage.

Charles Babbage Biography

Often considered the father of computing, Charles Babbage was an 18th-century polymath, meaning he was a person who had expertise in several different subject areas and possessed the ability to take the complex and create solutions from them. In Charles’ case, he was a man who modern space agencies would have loved to employ – a mechanical engineer, mathematician, and inventor most well-known for creating the concept of the programmable computer.

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Babbage was born on 26 December 1791 in London. Sadly he developed a bad fever at the tender age of eight so he was sent to a country school near Exeter. Later he would attend King Edward VI Grammar School in Totnes, but again his health failed and he had to have a private tutor assist him. Afterward, he attended the Holmwood Academy in Enfield, Middlesex.

The academy only had thirty students as well as a library that provoked Charles’s passion for mathematics. After leaving the academy, he continued studying with other private tutors. His first tutor was a clergyman near Cambridge. His second tutor was from Oxford through whom Charles excelled in classics so much so that he qualified to be accepted by Cambridge.

Babbage began learning at the University of Cambridge in 1810 at age nineteen. Being previously self-taught in many areas of mathematics, Charles was disappointed in the basic mathematics taught there. Charles Babbage helped to form the Analytical Society whose desire was to promote the Leibnizian notation for calculus. (This is the notation convention that uses dx and dy for infinitesimally small increments of each character.)

He was also a member of the Ghost Club, an organization that investigated supernatural happenings. Transferring to Peterhouse, Cambridge in 1812, Babbage was the top mathematician. Despite this, however, he did not graduate with honors but received a degree without examination in 1814.

1814 would prove to be a good year for him. Not only did he graduate university that year, he and a friend, Edward Ryan, would marry the Whitmore sisters. Babbage would go on to have nine children.

The Analytical Society that Charles Babbage had helped form while in college soon began to be more than just a collegiate exploit. He and some of his colleagues translated the French mathematician Sylvestre Lacroix’s calculus work into English and subsequently published it.

Life would not be so good for him when it came to finding a career. He kept applying for jobs but kept getting turned down, time and again. In 1820 Babbage helped found what would become the Royal Astronomical Society to support astronomical research, aiming to standardize astronomical calculations as well as circulate data.

It was his time at the Royal Astronomical Society that would begin to make his mark in the world. He was interested in ways to correct errors in math tables, and he created the “difference engine” which he revealed to the world on 14 June 1822 in a paper entitled, “Note on the Application of Machinery to the Computation of Astronomical and Mathematical Tables.” This machine could calculate polynomials using a mathematical method called the differences method. They approved of the idea, as did the government who granted him £1500.

In 1824 he won the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal for his invention of the “difference engine” that was capable of calculating mathematical and astronomical tables. Some consider Charles Babbage to be the father of the modern computer because of his inventing the first programmable computer that paved the way for more complex models in the future.

 “Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.” – Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter Biography

Helen Beatrix Potter was born on 28 July 1866 in West Brompton, which is in London, England. She had a relatively privileged upbringing, being born into an upper-class household. She was the daughter of Rupert William Potter who was a lawyer and Helen Leech who was the daughter of a successful cotton merchant and shipbuilder. The family’s wealth enabled Beatrix to be educated by three governesses during her childhood, the last of which, Annie Moore, who was only three years older than her, she remained friends with throughout her life.

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Annie would go on to have eight children of her own and Beatrix Potter would send them beautiful illustrated letters and it was Annie who suggested that these could form the basis of a series of books for children.

Her upbringing also had its downside though, in that she was fairly isolated from other children. Her holidays were spent traveling in Scotland where she developed a love for the natural world using paintings and drawings to help her to describe the flora and fauna of the area. Over time Beatrix Potter developed a particular interest in studying mushrooms and other fungi and her artistic skills improved as she described her observations. Her work is considered to be so good that it is still used today by mycologists to help identify fungi and a collection of her work can be found at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery in Scotland.

Not having many other children around whilst she was growing up, meant that she spent a lot of time with her younger brother, Walter Bertram. As children, they had many small pet animals which they kept and looked after in their schoolroom including rabbits, a hedgehog, bats, and a significant collection of butterflies and other insects which they studied and drew.

Beatrix Potter was very well read and was influenced by stories of fairy tales and fantasy. She read stories such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales, and Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. Potter also said that the illustrations from Alice in Wonderland inspired her at a young age. She loved works that included illustrations and began to develop her own style, often creating illustrations for classic stories such as Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Puss-in-Boots. Her illustrations also included fantasy works based on her pet rabbits, kittens, mice, and guinea pigs.

As a teenager, Beatrix Potter enjoyed visiting the art galleries in London and she became a relatively sophisticated art critic. From the age of 14, she kept a journal, which she wrote in code, a simple substitution cipher which she developed herself and she recorded her observations when she visited art exhibitions within it.

By the 1890s Beatrix and her brother were looking for ways to earn a little money and began to illustrate Christmas cards and cards for other occasions with the subjects still based around their pets, particularly the mice and rabbits. Several of her drawings of Benjamin Bunny were sold to a publisher and later she also sold some frog illustrations which accompanied a popular annual called Changing Pictures. It was during this time that Beatrix began to think about publishing her own illustrated stories.

In 1893, Beatrix Potter was on holiday in Perthshire, Scotland and as she often did, sat down to write a letter to Noel, the eldest son of her last governess, Annie Moore. The problem was that Beatrix couldn’t really think of anything interesting to tell him in the letter, so she decided to write a story for him based around the characters of four little rabbits called Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.

In episode 8 of the seventh season of the 5 Minute Biographies podcast, we take a brief look at the life of mathematics genius, philosopher and Nobel Prize winner - Bertrand Russell.

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