Dora Metcalf (née Greene, 1892-1982) born in Madras (now Chennai), India, to Irish parents. Her father, George Percy Greene, was Superintendent of the Madras Survey, a senior position in the Indian colonial administration. GPG died when Dora was 8 and the family returned to England. She was educated at Bedford High School and won a scholarship to take an external degree with London University, gaining her BA in Mathematics when she was 19. After her fiancé, Hugh Cass, was killed at Gallipoli she found herself to be one of two million ‘surplus women’ with little prospect of finding a husband. Her response was to start a career in computing in 1916, selling Comptometers in Belfast and in revolutionary Ireland.
Dora founded her own business, Calculating And Statistical Services, in 1924, winning the contract to analyse the Northern Irish census of 1926. She created an international market for information services using Comptometers and tabulators, her biggest client being the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake. In 1932 she joined the Women’s Provisional Club and was their treasurer for many years. In 1934 she joined British Tabulating Machines (BTM) and founded the Service Bureaux Division, while continuing to run her flourishing Irish business. She married Naval officer John Metcalf in 1935. During the Second World War BTM supplied the bombe machines to the Bletchley Park codebreakers. It is thought that Dora managed the contract until she was struck down with ill health and had to drop this work at the end of 1942. She re-established her reputation with the BCG vaccination project at St Ultan’s hospital in 1949. She introduced the first electronic computer into Ireland in 1957, before retiring in 1962 aged 70. Dora Metcalf has been recognised as a ‘notable person’ with her own Wikipedia page.
She loved fishing for salmon and trout. She and John moved from London to Loch Morar, where they lived until 1970. They lived the rest of their days in Otley, Yorkshire. She was the author’s great aunt.
Power On 