Stephanie Shirley | |
|---|---|
 Shirley in 2013 | |
| Born | Vera Buchthal[1] (1933-09-16)16 September 1933 |
| Died | 9 August 2025(2025-08-09) (aged 91) Reading, England |
| Other names | Vera Stephanie Buchthal Stephanie Brook |
| Occupation(s) | Businesswoman and philanthropist |
| Organisations | |
| Father | Arnold Buchthal |
| Relatives | Rosa Buchthal (grandmother) |
| Awards | FREng (2001) CHM Fellow (2018) |
| Honours | |
| Website | steveshirley |
Dame Vera Stephanie Shirley (previouslyBrook, néeBuchthal; 16 September 1933 – 9 August 2025) was a German-born British information technology pioneer, businesswoman and philanthropist.[2][3]
Shirley was born Vera Buchthal toArnold Buchthal, a judge inDortmund who was Jewish and who lost his post to theNazi regime,[4] and Margaret (née Schick), a non-JewishViennese mother.[5] Her paternal grandmother was politician andwomen's rights activistRosa Buchthal.[6] In July 1939, at the age of five, Shirley and her nine-year-old sister Renate travelled to Britain asKindertransport child refugees.[4][1]
She wasfostered by parents inSutton Coldfield.[7] She was later re-united with her biological parents, but said she "never really bonded with them".[8] Shirley attributed her earlychildhood trauma as being the driving force behind her ability to keep up with changes in her life and career.[citation needed]
After attending a convent school, she moved toOswestry where she attended theOswestry Girls' High School. Mathematics was not taught at the school, so she received permission after assessment to take those lessons at the local boys school. She would later recall that, after herKindertransport and wartime experiences, "in Oswestry I had five wonderful years of peace".[7]
After leaving school, Shirley decided not to go to university (botany was the "only science then available to my gender") but sought employment in a mathematics/technical environment.[9] At the age of 18, she became a British citizen and changed her name toStephanie Brook.[9]
In the 1950s, she worked at thePost Office Research Station atDollis Hill, building computers from scratch and writing code inmachine language.[10] She took evening classes for six years to obtain an honours degree in mathematics. In 1959, she moved to CDL Ltd, designers of theICT 1301 computer.
After her marriage to physicist Derek Shirley in 1959,[11] Shirley founded the software companyFreelance Programmers with a capital of £6.[4] Having experiencedsexism in her workplace, "being fondled, being pushed against the wall",[12] she wanted to create job opportunities for women with dependents, and predominantly employed women, with only three male programmers in the first 300 staff,[13] until theSex Discrimination Act 1975 made that practice illegal. The company was also innovative in that its employees worked part time and from home, so that they could better juggle family responsibilities; Shirley regarded the company as a social endeavor as well as a business.[14] She also adopted the name "Steve" to help her in the male-dominated business world,[15][12] given that company letters signed using her real name were not responded to.[16] Her team's projects included programmingConcorde's black box flight recorder.[7][17]
She served as an independent non-executive director forTandem Computers Inc., theAtomic Energy Authority (later AEA Technology) and theJohn Lewis Partnership.
Shirley retired in 1993 at the age of 60, and focused on philanthropy.[5] She died aged 91 in a nursing home in Reading, England, on 9 August 2025.[18][19][20]
The Shirley Foundation, based in the UK, was set up by Shirley in 1986 with a substantial gift to establish a charitable trust fund which spent out in 2018 in favour of Autistica. Its mission wasfacilitation and support of pioneering projects with strategic impact in the field of autism spectrum disorders with particular emphasis on medical research. The fund has supported many projects through grants and loans including: Autism at Kingwood which supports people with autism spectrum disorders to enjoy full and active lives; Prior's Court, the foundation's largest benefaction, with a residential school for 70 autistic pupils and Young Adult Centre for 20 autistic students; Autism99, the first online autism conference attended by 165,000 people from 33 countries. She addressed conferences around the world (many remotely) and was in frequent contact with parents, carers and those withautism spectrum disorders.[21] Her autistic son Giles died following anepileptic seizure at the age of 35.[22]
From May 2009 until May 2010, Shirley served as the UK'sAmbassador for Philanthropy, a government appointment aimed at giving philanthropists a "voice".[23][24]
In 2012, Shirley donated the entirety of her art collection, including works byElisabeth Frink,Maggi Hambling,Thomas Heatherwick,Josef Herman andJohn Piper to Prior's Court School and the charityPaintings in Hospitals.[25]
In 2013, appearing onBBC Radio 2'sGood Morning Sunday withClare Balding, Shirley discussed why she had given away more than £67 million of her personal wealth to different projects. In her 2012 memoirsLet IT Go, she writes "I do it because of my personal history; I need to justify the fact that my life was saved".[22]
Shirley received her BSc in 1956 and was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the1980 Birthday Honours[26] for services to industry;Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the2000 New Year Honours for services to information technology.;[27] andMember of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the2017 Birthday Honours for services to the IT industry and philanthropy.[28]
In 1987, she gained theFreedom of the City of London. She was the first female President of the charteredBritish Computer Society from 1989 to 1990 and Master of the IT livery company 1992/93.[29] In 1985, she was awarded a Recognition of Information Technology Award. In 1999, she received theMountbatten Medal.[30]
She was appointed aFellow of theRoyal Academy of Engineering and ofBirkbeck College in 2001.[31][32]In 2002 she was elected as Honorary Fellow atMurray Edwards College,University of Cambridge. At a ceremony at the Dome, Brighton East Sussex on April 25th, 2009, Dame Stephanie was awarded an Honary Doctorate by the Open University
She donated most of her wealth (from the internal sale to the company staff and later the flotation of FI Group) to charity.[33][34] Beneficiaries include theWorshipful Company of Information Technologists and theOxford Internet Institute, part of theOxford University, through theShirley Foundation. Her late son Giles (1963–1998) wasautistic and she became an early member of theNational Autistic Society.[35] Via the charityAutistica she instigated and funded research in this field.[citation needed]
In 2003, Shirley received theBeacon Fellowship Prize for her contribution to autism research and for her pioneering work in harnessing information technology for the public good.[36]
In 1991, Shirley was awarded an honorary doctorate from theUniversity of Buckingham; later she was honoured by theUniversity of Cambridge, and in 2022 by theUniversity of Kent and 28 other UK Universities.[37][38]
In February 2013, she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom byWoman's Hour onBBC Radio 4.[39] She was also recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2013.[40]
In January 2014, theScience Council named Shirley as one of the "Top 100 practising scientists" in the UK.[41]
In 2018, she was made a Fellow of theComputer History Museum,[42] and became the first woman to win the Gold Medal of theChartered Management Institute 'for her stellar contribution to British engineering and technology'.[43]
In August 2021, Shirley unveiled a blue plaque in Oswestry commemorating her school years in the town, the plaque is located on The Broadwalk close to St Oswald's Parish Church.[44]
In September 2021 Shirley unveiled a statue byIan Wolter onHarwich Quay, Essex. It commemorates the arrival of theKindertransport children at the port.[45]
In 2019, a donation from Shirley helped to establish the UK Philanthropy Archive based at theUniversity of Kent Special Collections & Archives.[46] In addition to the financial contribution Shirley also donated the records ofThe Shirley Foundation.[47] The archive currently holds eight other collections in addition to the Shirley Foundation's records, and material is actively being acquired in order to establish better evidence of philanthropy and its impact.[48][49][50]
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