Skip to main content

Primary sourceDocumentbefore 1853

Signature of Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace · before 1853

A reproduction of Ada Lovelace's handwritten signature, preserving her own handwriting.

This is Lovelace's own handwritten signature, a direct physical trace of her authorship and identity.

Ask Ada Lovelace about this sourceView the original(opens in new tab)
Handwritten cursive signature in black ink on a white background, reading 'A. A. Lovelace' with a long flourish extending to the right.
Signature of Ada Lovelace, reproduced before 1853.

About this source

What it is

This is a facsimile of Ada Lovelace's signature, reading 'A. A. Lovelace' with a flourish, reproduced in an engraving before 1853 and attributed to Ernst Haeckel's collection of signatures.

Why it matters

A signature is a direct trace of a person's own hand. This one lets students see how Lovelace actually wrote her name, connecting them physically to a woman now remembered as a pioneer in the history of computing.

Look closer

  • What does the style of the signature suggest about handwriting conventions of the time?
  • Why might someone collect and publish signatures of notable people?
  • What can and can't a signature tell us about a person's life and work?

This document is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Ada Lovelace on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

More Ada Lovelace sources

Meet the AI Ada Lovelace →
Scanned page titled 'Diagram for the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli. See Note G (page 722 et seq.)'. It is a dense table with columns for operation number, nature of operation, variables acted upon and receiving results, data and working variables, and results, filled with rows of symbols, formulas and numbers.Document

Primary source

Note G

Ada Lovelace · 1843

Title page of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, a romaunt, by Lord Byron. Black-letter heading, an epigraph in French attributed to Le Cosmopolite, and imprint: London, printed for John Murray, 32 Fleet-Street; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin, 1812. Aged cream paper.Book

Primary source

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Lord Byron · 1812

Watercolour portrait of a young woman with dark hair in side ringlets and a headdress of dark flowers and a yellow blossom. She wears a black lace shawl over a lilac dress with a gold fan and white gloves, against a grey-brown background.Painting

Primary source

Watercolour Portrait of Ada Lovelace

Alfred Edward Chalon · c. 1840

Full-length oil portrait of a young woman in a white satin gown with puffed sleeves and a red velvet fur-trimmed cloak, wearing a jeweled tiara in her dark hair. She stands by a carved wooden staircase and column, looking to the right.Painting

Primary source

Portrait of Ada Lovelace by Margaret Carpenter

Margaret Sarah Carpenter · 1836

Document

Primary source

Notions sur la machine analytique de M. Charles Babbage

Luigi Federico Menabrea · 1842

Ready when you are

Start chatting with Ada Lovelace now.

20 messages free · No credit card · Available in 50+ languages.

Trial Humy for freeGet a quote for institutions