1821-1827 - Ada’s Childhood

Ada schooled at home and “led an isolated childhood on her mother’s rented country estates, with governesses and tutors and her pet cat, Mrs. Puff” (Wolfram). As early as eight-years-old, Ada suffered from bad migraines that affected her vision. She was often sick as a child.

Even though Lady Byron traveled often, she “enforced a system of education for Ada that involved long hours of study and exercises in self control” (Wolfram). Ada learned mathematics ‘to the level of elementary geometry and algebra,” (Wolfram) and also learned music, per her father’s request. Neither one of her parents wanted her to become a poet.

When Ada was only eight-years-old, Lord Byron died in Greece on April 19, 1824. She would never know her father.

A quote from eight-year-old Ada to her mother on December 7, 1824 (Seymour):

“The little boy [Hugo, an orphaned nephew of Mary Montgomery] is a very nice child on the whole he speaks nothing but Italian and Spanish which I now perfectly understand.” –Ada Byron