51¸£ÀûÉç

Our community at 51¸£ÀûÉç is deeply saddened to hear of the death of Honorary Fellow Dame Stephanie Shirley on 9 August 2025.

Dame Stephanie Shirley was born in Dortmund; the daughter of Arnold Buchthal, a Jewish judge who lost his post during the Nazi regime.  In July 1939, she arrived at the age of five together with her nine-year-old sister Renate, in Britain as a Kindertransport child refugee. She was placed in the care of foster parents living in Sutton Coldfield, but later was re-united with her biological parents. 

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.  After leaving school, Shirley decided not to go to university but sought employment in a mathematics/technical environment. At the age of 18, she became a British citizen and changed her name to Stephanie Brook.  

In the 1950s, Stephanie worked at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill, building computers from scratch and writing code in machine language. She took evening classes for six years to obtain an honours degree in mathematics. In 1959, she moved to CDL Ltd, designers of the ICT 1301 computer.  

After marriage to a physicist, Derek Shirley, in 1962, Shirley founded, with a capital of £6, the software company Freelance Programmers, (later FI, then Xansa). She wanted to create job opportunities for women with dependents, and predominantly employed women, with only 3 male programmers in the first 300 staff, until the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 made that practice illegal. She adopted the name, Steve, to help her in the male-dominated business world.  Her team's projects included programming Concorde's black box flight recorder.   

She served as an independent non-executive director for Tandem Computers Inc., The Atomic Energy Authority (later AEA Technology) and The John Lewis Partnership.  Shirley retired in 1993 at the age of 60 to focus on her philanthropy.  

The Shirley Foundation, based in the UK was set up in 1986, to support research in to autism spectrum disorders.  Shirley’s son, Giles, suffered from autism and died during an epileptic seizure.  From May 2009 until May 2010, Dame Stephanie served as the UK's Ambassador for Philanthropy, a government appointment aimed at giving philanthropists a "voice".   

In 2013, appearing on BBC Radio 2's Good Morning Sunday with Clare Balding, Dame Stephanie discussed why she had given away more than £67 million of her personal wealth to different projects – ‘I do it because of my personal history; I need to justify the fact that my life was saved.’  

Dorothy Byrne, President, 51¸£ÀûÉç, said:

'We are deeply saddened to learn of the death of our Honorary Fellow Dame Stephanie Shirley. Dame Stephanie was a remarkable and admirable woman, an inspiration to our students, Fellows and staff. She was a pioneer in Information Technology, a successful entrepreneur who built a company with £6 from her kitchen table which reached a shareholder value of nearly £3 billion. She was a generous philanthropist who proudly gave away much of her fortune to support people with autism and research its causes. She was also a pioneer in speaking honestly about her mental health problems as she and her husband Derek cared for their son Giles, who had profound autism, while she built her business. 

'Dame Stephanie called herself 'Steve' when first applying for contracts to overcome the prejudice against women as she built her software business. In early days, she employed only women, offering part-time work so they could work and develop their talents. 

'She came to England first with her sister Renate on the Kindertransport and always said she wanted to ensure that hers was 'a life worth saving'. She succeeded beyond measure. We are proud that she joined our community and she will be greatly missed.'