UK honors war code-breaker
Print Edition
The Bank of England yesterday said World War II code-breaker Alan Turing had been chosen to feature on the back of Britain’s new 50-pound (US$63) banknote.
“Alan Turing was an outstanding mathematician whose work has had an enormous impact on how we live today,” Bank of England governor Mark Carney said as he unveiled the note at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, northwest England.
“As the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, as well as war hero, Alan Turing’s contributions were far ranging and pathbreaking. Turing is a giant on whose shoulders so many now stand,” the BoE chief added.
The Bank of England said that Turing played a pivotal role in the development of early computers. Due to enter circulation by the end of 2021, the note shows a photo of Turing taken in 1951.
Turing received a posthumous pardon from Queen Elizabeth II in 2013 over a conviction in 1952 for gross indecency with a 19-year-old man. He did not go to prison but was chemically castrated and died of cyanide poisoning in an apparent suicide in 1954, aged 41.
In 2017, the “Alan Turing Law” posthumously pardoned men who had been cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts in Britain.
The Oscar-winning 2014 film “The Imitation Game” starring Benedict Cumberbatch brought belated acclaim for Turing’s role in wartime code-breaking. The Bank of England is putting new faces on Britain’s banknotes as it switches from paper to polymer, a thin and flexible plastic film that is seen as more durable and secure.
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