LONDON (AP) – The rainbow flag proudly flew above the Bank of England in the heart of London’s financial district on Thursday to commemorate World War II code breaker Alan Turing, the new face of the British £ 50 note.
The banknote’s design was unveiled before it is officially released to the public on June 23, Turing’s birthday. The £ 50 note is the most valuable denomination in circulation, but little used in everyday transactions, especially during the coronavirus pandemic, as digital payments are increasingly replacing the use of cash.
Loaded with premium security features and made from more durable polymer, the new note completes the revision of the bank’s paper currencies in recent years. Turing’s picture echoes that of Winston Churchill on the £ 5 note, novelist Jane Austen on the £ 10 note and artist JMW Turner on the £ 20 note.
Turing was chosen as the new face of the £ 50 note in 2019 after a public nomination process that garnered approximately 250,000 votes, in part in recognition of the discrimination he faced as a gay man after the war.
Among his many accomplishments, Turing is best known for the pivotal role he played in breaking Nazi Germany’s Enigma Code during World War II. The code was believed to be unbreakable because the code was constantly changing. Historians say cracking the code helped shorten the war by at least two years, potentially saving millions of lives.
“There is something of a nation’s character in its money, and we are right to consider and celebrate the people on our notes,” said Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey.
Turing is best known for his codebreaking work at Bletchley Park, which helped end World War II. In addition, however, he was a leading mathematician, developmental biologist and a pioneer of computer science. He was also gay and was treated horribly as a result. “
During World War II, Turing worked at the secret code-breaking center in Bletchley Park, where he helped crack Enigma by creating the “Turing bombe,” a precursor to modern computers. He also developed the “Turing Test” to measure artificial intelligence.
After the war, he was prosecuted for his relationship with a man in Manchester and was given a choice between imprisonment and probation with the condition of a female hormone treatment, which was used at the time as a form of chemical castration.
His conviction led to the revocation of his security clearance and meant that he could no longer work for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). He died in 1954 at the age of 41 after eating an apple laced with cyanide.
Turing received a posthumous apology from the UK government in 2009 and a royal pardon in 2013. Four years later, the Turing Act was passed, pardoning gay men with previous convictions.
Actor and author Stephen Fry said Turing’s latest memorial is another step in the long-awaited recognition of “this very great man,” whose “talents reached far and wide.”
In a YouTube video posted by the bank, Fry explained the levels of discrimination and “ barbaric punishment ” that gay men faced in the years after World War II.
Alan Turing was one of the thousands of men harassed by the authorities, he said. “Not only because of the hostile attitude towards their sexuality alone, but also because of the intolerant belief that there is a link between homosexuality and communism.”
Over the past decade, Turing’s life has become known to a much wider audience, especially in the aftermath of the 2014 film ‘The Imitation Game’ in which Benedict Cumberbatch played the role of Turing.
As part of the design of the new note – which features a metal hologram that changes between the words ‘Fifty’ and ‘Pounds’ when the note is tilted and an image of a microchip – the bank partnered with the UK intelligence and security agency GCHQ to The Turing Challenge, a set of 12 puzzles
GCHQ said the full challenge could take an experienced puzzler seven hours to complete and that Turing may even have “scratched his head, although we very much doubt it.”
Turing’s great-nephew James Turing, who runs the Turing Trust British refurbishing computers for use in African schools told BBC radio that the puzzle is “a wonderful recognition, and somewhat reminiscent of the famous crossword puzzle they used to use for recruiting at Bletchley Park.”