Race against time to save Turing papers for the Nation

A race against time campaign has been launched by an independent supporter of the Bletchley Park Trust to save what may be the most complete collection of Alan Turing's works in the world.

Alan Mathison Turing was one of the pre-eminent World War Two codebreakers; a mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist who died tragically at the age of just 41, without having received public recognition for his wartime achievements.

Last year. after the unequivocal apology to wartime code breaker Alan Turing by the British government, prosecuted for his homosexuality in 1952, the Trust urged the nation to support its preservation as a permanent tribute to the legacy of Turing and the thousands who worked there, providing vital intelligence gathering during the Second World War (see news story).


Later this month, Christie's is to auction off an impressive quantity of Turing's offprints, as part of a larger auction of manuscripts, including 15 of his 18 published papers. It is thought to be the largest collection in the world, put together by Turing's friend and fellow Bletchley Park codebreaker, Professor Max Newman, to whom Turing presented the offprints.

The collection includes Turing's first published paper  'Equivalence of left and right almost periodicity' an offprint from: Journal of the London Mathematical Society in 1935 and  'Computing machinery and intelligence', a pioneering piece on artificial intelligence, an offprint from: MIND: A quarterly review of Psychology and Philosophy, published in 1950, along with the only published evidence of Turing's war work on computers.

Gareth Halfacree, an independent supporter of the Bletchley Park Trust, has launched a campaign to raise the money needed to purchase the collection for permanent public display at Bletchley Park.

"They belong in a dedicated museum," he says, "but Bletchley Park can't afford the £300,000 to £500,000 guide price.

"As a result, I'm asking for volunteers to dig deep and see to it that these papers not only stay in this country but stay where the public can see them and benefit from them. Let's save them from being locked away in the vaults of a private collector."

William Newman, the son of Max Newman, highlighted the importance of the collection, saying, "The offprint collection's value derives mainly from its completeness; indeed it may be the most complete collection of Turing's works in the world. This has come about because Turing started to give offprints to Max Newman before he had published the Computable Numbers paper. He subsequently gained a large following, who were interested mainly
in his follow-on work. In fact Turing published only 18 papers."

However, time is short to save these highly valuable papers for the nation. The auction takes place on the 23 November.

• To view the collection visit the Christies web site or to donate please visit, www.justgiving.com/turing-papers/


• For visitor information, contact 01908 640404, info@bletchleypark.org.uk,or go to www.bletchleypark.org.uk