A Blue Plaque in honour of Beryl May Dent (1900 - 1977)
St. Antony's Centre (Trafford Park Heritage Centre) is delighted to have been chosen as the site for a new Blue Plaque, issued by Trafford MBC, to celebrate the life and work of Beryl May Dent, a mathematician, engineer and computer programmer, who worked as a Section Leader in the Computation department of Metropolitan Vickers in Trafford Park.
An event to unveil the plaque took place on Saturday 9th August 2025 at St. Antony's Centre. The blue plaque was unveiled by the Mayor of Trafford, Councillor Jane Brophy. Cllr Brophy said: "We are paying tribute to another pioneer, a brilliant mind and someone who left an indelible mark on mathematics, engineering and computing. Beryl Dent showed that women deserved to be given equal rights when it came to education – and that their place could be in the laboratory, university or wherever their capabilities took them." Kevin Flanagan, Director of St. Antony's Centre and Trafford Park Heritage Centre paid tribute to Beryl's pioneering work, especially in what was a male-dominated engineering environment. He hoped that the blue plaque would encourage others to hear her story and to engage more young women to be inspired by Beryl's lifetime work and her contribution to the wider industrial and community of Manchester and Stretford in particular.
Mayor of Trafford, Cllr Jane Brophy, and Centre Director, Kevin Flanagan, before the unveiling of the blue plaque.
The Story of Beryl May Dent
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Beryl May Dent was born on 10 May 1900 in Chippenham. Wilstshire. The family move to Warminster in 1909 and this is where Beryl was educated, along with her sister Florence May.
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After a spell of employment at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Hampshire in 1918, she moved on to study at the University of Bristol, initially taking a BA and then gaining a BSc in Applied Mathematics with First Class Honours in 1923. She studied alongside only one other student, future Nobel prize winner Paul Dirac.
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After a year studying at Cambridge, she returned to Bristol and gained an MSc in 1927 for her work on crystal structure. Although women specialising in Mathematics in the 1920s faced limited job prospects, Beryl earned a Research Assistant role at the University of Bristol.
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It was in 1929 that Beryl moved to Manchester to fulfil the position of Technical Librarian within the Scientific Research Department at Metropolitan-Vickers in Trafford Park. This new scientific career required a high level of technical skill. Because of her advanced knowledge of high mathematics, she was also asked to check the mathematics in papers for publication by engineers at Metropolitan-Vickers.
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Metropolitan-Vickers created a new computational section and Beryl earned a promotion to be its section leader in 1946. She also joined the Women's Engineering Society and published papers on the application of digital computers to electrical design. Beryl's work in this field accelerated and she wrote programs for the Farranti Mark I computer at the University of Manchester. This was the world's first commercially available general-purpose computer. Beryl continued to publish papers throughout the 1950s, furthering her pioneering work in computer application design. She retired from Metropolitan-Vickers in 1960.
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Beryl had strong links to Stretford, acting as school manager at St. Matthew's Church of England Primary School between 1956 and 1962.
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In 1962, Beryl moved to Sussex where she was an active member of the Christian community. Beryl died on 9 August 1977 and her ashes were interred at Worthing Crematorium.
Research carried out by Trafford Local Studies Centre
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