During a repatriation ceremony held at Sherborne School on 22 August 2023, HSI Special Agent Greg Wertsch and DOJ AUSA Laura Hurd formally handed over to the Headmaster of Sherborne School material from the School’s Turing Archive, which had been seized in Colorado in February 2018 by the US Dept of Homeland Security Investigations.
The repatriated material included six of Alan Turing’s school reports dating from 1924 to 1931; the OBE awarded to Alan Turing in 1946 for secret war service in the Foreign Office, together with a letter from King George VI regretting that he was unable to present the award to him in person; the Princeton University PhD certificate awarded to Alan Turing in 1938; and portrait photographs taken of Alan Turing in 1951 when he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. These items were originally given to Sherborne School by Alan Turing’s mother when, following Alan’s death, she set about securing his legacy by donating material to institutions with which Alan had been associated during his lifetime, which included Sherborne School where Alan was a pupil from 1926 to 1931, and King’s College Cambridge where he had studied as an undergraduate and was later elected a Fellow.
The Governors and Staff of Sherborne School are very grateful to all those who have worked so hard to secure the return of the material to the School, in particular the staff of the US Dept of Homeland Security Investigations and DOJ AUSA Laura Hurd.
View digital copies of the repatriated material from Sherborne School’s Alan Turing archive
For further information about Alan Turing’s time at Sherborne School
Posted 22 August 2023 by Sherborne School Archives
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