Steve Shirley
Dame Steve Shirley CH Multiple doctorates | |
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Website | steveshirley |
Dame Vera Stephanie "Steve" Shirley
Early life
Shirley was born as Vera Buchthal to
After attending a convent school, she moved to Oswestry, near the Welsh border, where she attended the Oswestry 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 her Kindertransport and wartime experiences, "in Oswestry I had five wonderful years of peace".[1]
Biography
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.[7] At the age of 18, she became a British citizen and changed her name to Stephanie Brook.[7]
In the 1950s, Shirley worked at the
After marriage to a physicist, Derek Shirley (died 2021), in 1959,
She served as an independent non-executive director for
Shirley retired in 1993 at the age of 60 and has since focused on her philanthropy.
Honours
Shirley received her BSc in 1956 and was appointed
In 1987, she gained the
She was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of Birkbeck College in 2001.[20][21]
She has donated most of her wealth (from the internal sale to the company staff and later the flotation of FI Group) to charity.
In 2003, Shirley received the
In 1991, Shirley was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Buckingham; since then she has been honoured by the University of Cambridge, and in 2022 by the University of Kent University of Kent and 28 other UK Universities.[26]
In February 2013, she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.[27] She was also recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2013.[28]
In January 2014, the Science Council named Shirley as one of the "Top 100 practising scientists" in the UK.[29]
In 2018, she was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum,[30] and became the first woman to win the Gold Medal of the Chartered Management Institute 'for her stellar contribution to British engineering and technology'.[31]
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.[32]
In September 2021 Shirley unveiled a statue by Ian Wolter on Harwich Quay, Essex. It commemorates the arrival of the Kindertransport children at the port.[33]
Philanthropy
From May 2009 until May 2010, Shirley served as the UK's Ambassador for Philanthropy, a government appointment aimed at giving philanthropists a "voice".[36][37]
In 2012, Shirley donated the entirety of her art collection, including works by Elisabeth Frink, Maggi Hambling, Thomas Heatherwick, Josef Herman and John Piper to Prior's Court School and the charity Paintings in Hospitals.[38]
In 2013, appearing on BBC Radio 2's Good Morning Sunday with Clare Balding, Shirley discussed why she had given away more than £67 million of her personal wealth to different projects. In her 2012 memoirs Let IT Go, she writes "I do it because of my personal history; I need to justify the fact that my life was saved."[35]
Sponsored publications
- Design for Disability
- The Art of Prior's Court School
- The History of Autism – Conversations with the Pioneers
- Autism Works
- Autism and the Law
Books
- Let It Go: My Extraordinary Story – From Refugee to Entrepreneur to Philanthropist (with ISBN 978-0241395493
- My Family in Exile (2015) ISBN 978 0 85457 244 1
- So To Speak (2020) an anthology of 30 of Dame Stephanie's speeches ISBN 978 1 5272 6880 7
- Ein unmögliches Leben: Die außergewöhnliche Geschichte einer Frau, die die Regeln der Männer brach und ihren eigenen Weg ging (2020)
- Déjalo (2022) Ir Memorias de Dame Stephanie (Steve) Shirley La inspiradora biografia de una nińa refugiada que llega a ser millionaria, filintropán y Dama del Imperio Británico.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d "Dame Stephanie to return to Oswestry". Shropshire Star. 1 April 2015. p. 23.Report by Sue Austin. She was due to be attending Oswestry Literary Festival to publicise her autobiography.
- ^ Beaty, Zoe (14 June 2019). "The 85-year-old tech entrepreneur who made her staff millionaires". The Telegraph – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
- ^ Smale, Will (17 June 2019). "I just got fed up with the sexism. It was everywhere". BBC News.
- ^ a b c "Welcoming home a Dame fine lady". Shropshire Star. 10 April 2015. p. 8."Comment and Analysis" report by Pam Kingsley.
- ^ "Biography – Steve Shirley website". Archived from the original on 13 June 2007. Retrieved 17 April 2007.
- ^ "Growing influence". Guardian. 14 January 2004. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
- ^ ISBN 9781782341536.
- ^ "Stephanie Shirley, The Life Scientific – BBC Radio 4". BBC. 7 April 2015. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
- ^ Shirley, Dame Stephanie. "Dame Stephanie Shirley | Speaker | TED". www.ted.com. Retrieved 11 February 2019.
- ^ a b Why I changed my name to Steve – BBC Ideas. BBC Money via Facebook. 15 February 2019. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
- ISBN 978-1782342823.
- ^ "Henley Standard article on the Sue Ryder Awards". Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 20 December 2007.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 – Seriously…, A Job for the Boys". BBC. 2 April 2019. Retrieved 11 April 2019.
- ^ "Transcript of 'Why do ambitious women have flat heads?'". TED Talks. 27 March 2015. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
- ^ "No. 48212". The London Gazette (Supplement). 13 June 1980. p. 12.
- ^ "No. 55710". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 1999. p. 8.
- ^ "No. 61962". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2017. p. B25.
- ^ "10 Amazing Female Computer Scientists You've Probably Never Heard Of".
- ^ "The Mountbatten Medalists". IET. 29 May 2013. Archived from the original on 4 May 2013. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
- ^ "List of Fellows". Royal Academy of Engineering. Archived from the original on 8 June 2016.
- ^ "Fellows of the College — Birkbeck, University of London". www.bbk.ac.uk. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
- ^ Desert Island Discs, 23 May 2010, BBC Radio 4
- ^ Enterprise Tuesday lecture, Cambridge 3 February 2009
- ^ "Timeline – Steve Shirley website". Archived from the original on 22 December 2008. Retrieved 4 February 2009.
- ^ "Stephanie Shirley biography". The Beacon Fellowship. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
- ^ "Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley | UNSSC | United Nations System Staff College". www.unssc.org. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 – Woman's Hour, Woman's Hour Power List – Dame Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley". BBC. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
- ^ "100 Women: Who took part?". BBC News. 20 October 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
- ^ "The UK's 100 leading practising scientists". Times Higher Education. 17 January 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
- ^ "Dame Stephanie Shirley | Computer History Museum". www.computerhistory.org. Retrieved 22 February 2018.
- ^ "Dames win top CMI Honours". Retrieved 18 March 2018.
- ^ Austin, Sue (28 July 2021). "Blue plaque plan to honour Oswestry Kindertransport refugee and IT entrepreneur". www.shropshirestar.com. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
- ^ "In pictures: Kindertransport children commemorated in statue unveiling in Harwich". September 2022.
- ^ "Dame Stephanie Shirley's UKAF Autism Lecture in Redbridge, England (Medical News Today)". Retrieved 20 December 2007.
- ^ a b "Dame Stephanie Shirley". BBC. 27 January 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
- ^ "Dame Stephanie Shirley appointed as philanthropy ambassador". Third Sector. 22 April 2009. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
- ^ "Philanthropist Stephanie Shirley: 'You can only spend so much'". The Telegraph. 5 November 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
- ^ "Art Collection". www.steveshirley.com. Archived from the original on 19 November 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
External links
- Dame Stephanie Shirley official website
- Listen to an oral history interview with Dame Stephanie Shirley – a life story interview recorded for the National Life Stories project Oral History of British Science at the British Library
- IEEE oral history
- Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley at TED