On the 9th March 1953, Alan Turing made his last-ever visit to Sherborne School when he was invited to give a paper to the School’s science society, The Alchemists. The meeting was held at The Green (now the Old Green), which was then run by Housemaster and senior science master Laurence Seymour May (1914-1997).
The paper Alan Turing read to the boys on 9th March 1953 was on the subject of the ‘Electronic Brain’ which was probably taken from his 1951 paper ‘Digital Computers applied to Games’, a typescript manuscript copy of which was given to Sherborne School by Alan Turing’s mother and includes corrections made to the text by the cryptanalyst and chess player Conel Hugh O’Donel Alexander (1909-1974) who during the Second World War had worked under Alan Turing at Bletchley Park as deputy head of Hut 8.
To find out more about Alan Turing’s last visit to Sherborne and to read his manuscript copy of ‘Digital Computers applied to Games’ visit Alan Turing and the Electronic Brain
Posted 9 March 2023 by Sherborne School Archives
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