Judy Butland (née Whiteley) (6 October 1940 - 2019) was a British engineering

software design Software design is the process by which an agent creates a specification of a software artifact intended to accomplish goals, using a set of primitive components and subject to constraints. Software design may refer to either "all the activity ...

er who pioneered the use of computers at universities. She was recognised in 2019 as an Engineer of the Week by the Women's Engineering Society.

Early life and education

Judy Whiteley was born on 6 October 1940 in

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...

, the daughter of George Whiteley, a draughtsman, and Margaret Whiteley, a seamstress. She suffered from arthritis all her life and from the age of 12 to 14, was confined to bed at

Wharfedale Wharfedale ( ) is the valley of the upper parts of the River Wharfe and one of the Yorkshire Dales. It is situated within the districts of Craven and Harrogate in North Yorkshire, and the cities of Leeds and Bradford in West Yorkshire. It is ...

children's hospital in

Menston Menston is a village and civil parish in the City of Bradford in the county of West Yorkshire, England. Along with Burley in Wharfedale, most of Menston is within Wharfedale Ward in the metropolitan borough of Bradford. The remainder of Men ...

, with little communication with her family and no information from her doctors. She never talked about her illness. She studied for a degree in mathematics at the

Manchester College of Science and Technology , mottoeng = By Knowledge and Work , established = 1824 , closed = 2004 (merged into newly formed University of Manchester in 2004) , affiliation = , endowment = , officer_in_charge = , chairman ...

, but although she completed three years of study she found the lectures boring and did not complete her degree.

Career

Butland's first position was at the

Associated Electrical Industries Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) was a British holding company formed in 1928 through the merger of the British Thomson-Houston Company (BTH) and Metropolitan-Vickers electrical engineering companies. In 1967 AEI was acquired by GEC, to c ...

, Manchester, Information and Exchange section, where she worked as a technical abstractor, producing summaries of technical articles and papers from engineering and science publications. In 1967 she went to work at the Manchester Business School as Mathematical Assistant to

Winifred Hackett Winifred Hackett (2 October 1906 – 3 June 1994) was an electrical and aeronautical engineer who worked on guided weapon systems and the DEUCE computer. Early life and education Hackett was born in Kings Norton, an area of Birmingham on 2 O ...

, an aeronatutical engineer. She worked, amongst other things, on scheduling workflows for aeroplane production. The project entailed statistical analysis, which required complex calculations, so Hackett sent Butland to lectures on the principles of computing, which led to Butland's career in software engineering. She advised other groups in the Business School on computing, including working with the librarian to automate the classification of publications. Butland left this post to work at the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a Public university, public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be creat ...

, Postgraduate School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, improving the quality of programming in research projects. She was awarded an M.Phil. for her thesis describing tools she developed to produce technical charts from research data. Butland set up her own company, Bradford University Software Services (BUSS), to sell a software package, SimplePlot, which she developed. The proceeds from sales of the software were used to help support the department's work.

Publications

Butland published a number of academic papers, including one on drawing a smooth curve through a set of data points, which became known as Butland's algorithm.

Personal life

In 1964 Judy Butland was married to David Butland who she met at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

. They had one son, Philip. Butland's funeral was held on Wednesday 2 January 2019, at the Salvation Army, Bridlington, Yorkshire.

Recognition

Butland was appointed posthumously, in October 2019, as Engineer of the Week No 89 by the Women's Engineering Society.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butland, Judy British women engineers Women's Engineering Society British computer programmers British computer scientists 1940 births 2019 deaths