Lovelace and Hawking among contenders to be new face of £50 note

Scientist has to be British - and dead - with 19-century mathematician known as 'grandmother of computing' as early frontrunner

The Bank of England is to ask the public to nominate a scientist as the face of the new plastic 50 note, with Ada Lovelace, a 19th-century mathematician known as the "grandmother of computing", an early frontrunner alongside Stephen Hawking and Nobel prizewinner Dorothy Hodgkin.

Related: Turing, Lovelace or Franklin? Your choices for the new 50 note