History's HEROES? 1912 - 1954

Alan Turing

Alan Turing - Key facts

See the full timeline


• 1912 Alan Mathison Turing born in Maida Vale, London, to Ethel Sara Turing (nee Stoney) and Julius Mathison Turing.
• 1927-30 Alan furthers his love of science and maths by reading Einstein whilst at Sherborne. His great friend, Christopher Morcom, who shares his interests, suddenly dies. Alan is devastated.
• 1934 Alan graduates with distinction in Mathematics from King's College, Cambridge.
• 1938 Alan goes to Princeton University in America to study mathematics and is awarded a PhD.
• 1939 September - Alan is asked to join the Government Codes and Ciphers School and arrives at Bletchley Park the day after war is declared.
• 1940 With Gordon Welchman, Alan develops the Bombe to decipher the messages sent by the Germans using their Enigma machine.
• 1943-45 Alan works with top people in the USA, which he visits to share information on code breaking.
• 1945 At the end of the war, Alan Turing is awarded the OBE for his wartime services.
• 1946 Alan publishes a paper with the first detailed design of a stored-program computer.
• 1949 Alan is made deputy director of the Computing Laboratory at Manchester University.
• 1950 Alan publishes the famous paper 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence' in which he develops the Turing Test.
• 1951 Alan is elected Fellow of the Royal Society, and also gives talks about Artificial Intelligence on the BBC.
• 1952 Alan is arrested for gross indecency. He loses his security clearance so he cannot work. He is offered chemical treatment instead of going to prison. The treatment makes him very unwell.
• 1954 Alan dies in his home in Wilmslow, Cheshire, from poisoning. A half-eaten apple was found next to him laced with cyanide.
• 1986 A play, Breaking the Code, about Alan's life and work opens in the West End with Derek Jacobi playing Alan.
• 2007 A slate sculpture of Turing is unveiled at Bletchley Park.
• 2009 Thousands of people sign a petition. The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown makes a public apology saying the treatment of Alan Turing was "appalling".
E2B® and E2BN® are registered trade marks and trading names of East of England Broadband Network (Company Registration No. 04649057)
Terms and Conditions