Mary Clare Coombs (née Blood, 4 February 1929 – 28 February 2022).
Mary gained fame as the first women world-wide to write a business application on a computer – the LEO I installed by Lyons at Cadby Hall. Her fame was such that she received the accolade of full obituaries in the Guardian, The Daily Telegraph. The Times as well as the trade press and IT/IS institutions including the BCS the Register and Wikipedia. A full listing of tributes to Mary as at 22nd March 2022 is:
Obituary notices etc for Mary Coombs
date Publication link comment
1 09/03/2022 CCH website http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/
2 10/03/2022 The Daily Telegraph
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2022/03/10/mary-coombs-first-woman-write-programs-worlds-first-business/ John Aeberhard. Also posted on Flipboard.com
3 11/03/2022 The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/11/mary-coombs-obituary Georgina Ferry
4 12/03/2022 The Register (web)
https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/12/obit_mary_coombs/ Uploaded by Putney High School. Several comments online
5 12/03/2022 The NewsTrace (web)
https://thenewstrace.com/the-first-female-programmer-of-a-commercial-application-worked-in-a-cake-company-and-just-died-at-93-years-old/224277/ https://thenewstrace.com/the-first-female-programmer-of-a-commercial-application-worked-in-a-cake-company-and-just-died-at-93-years-old/224277/ Kim Diaz
6 13/02/2022 Retrocomputing (web)
https://retrocomputingforum.com/t/mary-coombs-first-woman-commercial-programmer-dies-at-93/2428 Link to The Register
7 14/03/2022 BCS
https://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/obituary-mary-coombs-worlds-first-woman-business-computer-programmer-1929-2022/ John Aeberhard Frank Land
8 14/03/2022 The Elective (web)
https://elective.collegeboard.org/mary-coombs-computer-science-pioneer Dante A Ciampaglia US website founded 2020 for students
9 14/03/2022 Computer Weekly.com (web)
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252514561/First-female-business-computer-programmer-dies John Aeberhard ( sent in by PB)
10 15/03/2022 Communications of the ACM (web)
https://cacm.acm.org/news/259299-in-memoriam-mary-coombs-1929-2022/fulltext Refers to full text in Computing – see below.
11 15/03/2022 Computing https://www.computing.co.uk/news/4046448/mary-coombs-female-business-computer-programmer-dies-93 Dev Kundaliya. Behind a membership wall.
12 17/03/2022 The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mary-coombs-obituary-gns7lzf6z John Aeberhard with additions from the family
13 18/03/2022 20/3/2022 BBC Radio 4 Last https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015bbn Frank Land and Georgina Ferry
14 ? The Week No link – Neville has sent me scan of the magasine. Can’t track down web link to the article
15 Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Coombs Updated entry
16 Bucks Free Press
https://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/announcements/deaths/deaths/20002314.Mary_Clare_COOMBS___n__e_Blood_/ Death notice from family