Mathematician, computer scientist, theoretical biologist, and Second World War codebreaker.
Alan Mathison Turing was born on 23 June 1912 at Warrington Lodge, Warrington Avenue, London, the second son of Julius Mathison Turing (1873-1947) of the Indian Civil Service, and Ethel Sara Turing (née Stoney) (1881-1976), daughter of Edward Waller Stoney, chief engineer of the Madras Railways.
From 1922 to 1926 Alan attended a preparatory school at Hazelhurst in Frant, East Sussex, and from May 1926 to July 1931 he was a pupil at Sherborne School, where he boarded at Westcott House.
On 5 May 1926, Alan famously arrived by bicycle for his first day at Sherborne School, having cycled the 65 miles (104 km) from Southampton to Sherborne because no trains were running due to the General Strike.
Alan was not a great team game player, preferring individual sports such as golf and long-distance running, although he did play rugby for his house at Sherborne. He was a member of the chapel choir and on 7 November 1927 was confirmed in the School chapel. In Michaelmas term 1930 he was made a School Prefect and joined The Duffers society to whom he read a paper entitled ‘Other Worlds’.
Alan won many School prizes at Sherborne, including the Kirby Mathematics Prize for the Lower School (1926), the Lyon Prize for Examination (1927), the Plumptre Mathematical Prize for the Middle School (1928), the Digby Prize for Mathematics and Science (1930, 1931), the Christopher Morcom Prize for Natural Science (1930, 1931), and the King’s Medal for Mathematics (1931). He was also awarded the Westcott House Goodman Leaving Scholarship (1931).
When Alan left Sherborne in July 1931, the Headmaster wrote on his final school report – ‘A gifted & distinguished boy, whose future career we shall watch with much interest’, and his housemaster wrote thanking him for his ‘help & loyalty, as well as for the enjoyment you gave by being here. I will guarantee that Turing will be a household word until the present generation has disappeared.’
Alan was a proud Shirburnian, joining the Old Shirburnian Society in 1931 and remaining a member until his death in 1954. In 1945 he subscribed to an appeal to raise funds to build a memorial at Sherborne to the 242 Old Shirburnians who had died in the Second World War. He returned to Sherborne on numerous occasions to visit his former teachers and to attend house suppers. On 9 March 1953 he made his last visit to Sherborne when he gave a talk about ‘The Electronic Brain’ to a meeting of The Alchemists society at The Green.
Between 1965 and 1967, Alan’s mother, Mrs Ethel Sara Turing, donated material to Sherborne School that today forms the core of the School’s Alan Turing Archive, at the same time Mrs Turing also donated material to King’s College, Cambridge which is now held at The Archive Centre.
In 1966 Sherborne School’s new science laboratory was named ‘The Alan Turing Laboratory’, making it the first building in the world named in honour of Alan Turing. Sir Ben Lockspeiser, the first President of CERN, wrote that ‘By this act the Governors are, if I may say so, honouring themselves as well as Alan. I know the high repute in which Alan, through his brilliant original thinking, is held abroad, especially in USA, and I am happy to think that his place in history, in the field of mathematics, is assured.’
On 22 August 2023, items from Sherborne School’s Alan Turing archive were formally returned to the School during a repatriation ceremony.
For further information about Sherborne School’s Alan Turing Archive please contact the School Archivist.
Online Resources:
- Repatriated material from Sherborne School’s Turing Archive
- A tour around Alan Turing’s Sherborne
- The Sherborne Formula: the Making of Alan Turing by Rachel Hassall, 2019
- Alan Turing’s school reports 1926-1931 (pdf)
- Alan Turing’s sixth form reading list
- Alan Turing’s cycle ride to Sherborne & the 1926 General Strike
- Alan Turing’s Sporting Life
- Alan Turing’s confirmation in 1927
- Bronze bust of Alan Turing at Sherborne School
- Film footage of Sherborne School, c.1930 (YouTube)
- Alan Turing and the ‘Nature of Spirit’
- Alan Turing and Lewis Carroll
- Alan Turing’s election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, 1951
- Alan Turing and the ‘Electronic Brain’
- Alan Turing by John Turing, The Shirburnian, March 1980 (pdf)
- Educating a Mathematical Genius by D.B. Eperson (pdf)
- Obituary for Alan Turing by Geoffrey O’Hanlon (pdf)
- Christopher Morcom (1911-1930)
- Sherborne’s Turing-Cumberbatch Connection by Rachel Hassall, 2014 (pdf)
- The boy who shared a study with Alan Turing by Rachel Hassall, 2015 (pdf)
- Alan Turing and the King’s College Boat Club (KCBC) (Flickr)
- Alan Turing’s Digby Prize for Science & Mathematics (Flickr)
- Alan Turing’s copy of ‘Natural Wonders Every Child Should Know’ (Flickr)
- Alan Turing Prize for Science (Flickr)
- Blue Plaque, Westcott House, Sherborne (Flickr)
- Geoffrey O’Hanlon MC, Alan Turing’s housemaster at Westcott House (Flickr)
- Sherborne Mural (Flickr)
- Old Shirburnian Fellows of the Royal Society
- The Alchemists Society, Sherborne School
Links:
- Alan Turing online exhibition, The Archive Centre, King’s College, Cambridge University
- The Turing Digital Archive, The Archive Centre, King’s College, Cambridge University
- The Papers of Alan Turing, The Archive Centre, King’s College, Cambridge University
- Alan Turing Collection, John Rylands University Library, Manchester University
- Alan Turing Papers (Additional) 1949-1954, Manchester University Library
- National Physical Laboratory Collection, Manchester University Library
- Matt Parker, The Turing Solution (2012), BBC Radio 4
Further reading:
- D.B. Eperson, Music and Mathematics (The Book Guild Ltd., Sussex, 2002)
- Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: The Enigma (London, Vintage Books, 2012)
- Simon Lavington, A History of Manchester Computers (British Computer Society, 1998)
- David Leavitt, The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (London: Phoenix, 2006)
- David Leavitt, The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer (London: Phoenix, 2006)
- Dermot Turing, Prof: Alan Turing Decoded (The History Press, 2015)
- Dermot Turing, Alan Turing: The Life of a Genius (Pitkin Guide, 2017)
- Dermot Turing, The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park (Arcturus Publishing Ltd., 2020)
- Dermot Turing, Reflections of Alan Turing: A Relative Story (The History Press, 2021)
- Sara Turing, Alan M. Turing. Centenary Edition. (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
- Hugh Whitemore, Breaking the Code (Samuel French Ltd., 1988)
For further information about the Sherborne School Archives please contact the School Archivist
Return to the School Archives homepage