Dina St Johnston (née Aldrina Nia Vaughan, 20 September 1930 – 30 June/1 July 2007) was a British
computer programmer credited with founding the UK's first
software house
A software company is a company whose primary products are various forms of software, software technology, distribution, and software product development. They make up the software industry.
Types
There are a number of different types of softw ...
in 1959.
[Simon Lavington]
An Appreciation of Dina St Johnston (1930–2007) Founder of the UK's First Software House
The Computer Journal
''The Computer Journal'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering computer science and information systems. Established in 1958, it is one of the oldest computer science research journals. It is published by Oxford University Press on behal ...
(2009) 52 (3): 378-387. doi: 10.1093/comjnl/bxn019
Early life and education
Born Aldrina Nia Vaughan in south London, St Johnston was educated at
Selhurst Grammar School for Girls before leaving school at 16 or 17 (accounts vary) to work for the
British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association
The British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association was a research group in the United Kingdom during the 20th century, bringing together public and privately funded research into metallurgy. The name was abbreviated officially to B.N.F.M.R.A. (th ...
.
St Johnston worked and studied part-time, studying at
Croydon Polytechnic and later
Sir John Cass College
London Guildhall University was a university in the United Kingdom from 1992 to 2002, established when the City of London Polytechnic was awarded university status. On 1 August 2002, it merged with the University of North London to form Londo ...
before gaining an external
London University
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree- ...
degree in mathematics.
Early career
In 1953, St Johnston left the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association and joined Borehamwood Laboratories of
Elliott Brothers (London) Ltd, where she worked in the Theory Division.
The company was an early computer company and had produced its first computer in 1950. St Johnston learned to programme at the company and also at the 1954 Cambridge Summer School on Programming and, showing a real flair for programming, began working on EDSAC and the Elliott 400 and 800 series computers.
By 1954, St Johnston was responsible for the programming of the Elliott 153
Direction Finding
Direction finding (DF), or radio direction finding (RDF), isin accordance with International Telecommunication Union (ITU)defined as radio location that uses the reception of radio waves to determine the direction in which a radio stati ...
(DF) digital computer for the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
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*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
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Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
and soon after for programming Elliott's own payroll computer; her work was said to have been inventive and structured, but also very accurate, hardly ever requiring 'de-bugging'.
Vaughan Computers
Shortly after her marriage to Andrew St Johnston – head of the Elliott computing department – in 1958, St Johnston (born Vaughan) founded
Vaughan Programming Services (VPS) in
Ware
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* Ware, Elmore County ...
, Hertfordshire in 1959, performing software contracts, training and hiring additional programmers as needed. On its tenth anniversary in 1969, company literature stated that "VPS was the first registered independent Software unit in the UK (February 1959), that was not a part of a computer manufacturer, not a part of a
computer bureau, not a part of a users' organisation and not a part of a consultancy operation."
Significant contracts came to St Johnston and VPS, such as programming early nuclear power stations, but in 1970 she branched out into hardware, producing her own computer, the 4M, and the company changed its name to Vaughan Systems and Programming in 1975 to reflect the new area of work.
One of the 4M Vaughan computers is in
The National Museum of Computing
The National Museum of Computing is a museum in the United Kingdom dedicated to collecting and restoring historic computer systems. The museum is based in rented premises at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire and opened in 2007. ...
.
St Johnston and her company, Vaughan, produced software for companies like the BBC, Unilever, and GEC, flight simulators for the RAF and software that provided real-time information for passengers on
British Rail, the type of work for which the company became most well known.
The company became well known for transport signalling and display systems.
Later life
In 1996, Vaughan Systems and Programming was sold to Harmon Industries, an American railway signalling company.
St Johnston continued programming until the mid-1990s.
She retired in 1999 and died on 30 June/1 July 2007.
See also
*
Steve Shirley
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:St Johnson, Dina
1930 births
2007 deaths
British computer programmers
British women in business
20th-century British businesspeople
People from London