LONDON (Reuters) – The Bank of England unveiled the design of a new celebration note for mathematician Alan Turing, which helped Britain win World War II with its code-breaking skills. but is believed to have been killed after being convicted of having sex with a male partner.
The new 50-pound ($ 69) bill includes an image of Turing, mathematical formulas from a 1936 paper he wrote that laid the groundwork for modern computing, and technical drawings for the machines used to decipher the Enigma code.
The polymer note also contains a quote from Turing about increasing the intelligence of machines: “This is only a foretaste of what is to come and only a shadow of what will be.”
Turing relied on the work of Polish mathematicians who had figured out how to read Germany’s Enigma code, finding a way to break the greater security of the Nazi code.
This story was told in the 2014 film The Imitation Game in which Turing was played by actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
Turing’s work led to the decipherment of German naval communications that helped Allied convoys move away from the submarines and was instrumental in the Battle of the Atlantic.
He also developed a technique that led to the breaking of the more sophisticated Lorenz cipher in Germany.
Turing was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 for having sex with a man and underwent chemical castration with injections of female hormones to avoid imprisonment. He lost his security permit to work with the British agency GCHQ.
Homosexual sex was illegal in Britain until 1967.
Turing used cyanide to kill himself in 1954, at the age of 41, according to a survey at the time. Queen Elizabeth granted him a royal pardon in 2013 for the criminal conviction that preceded his death.
“There’s something about a nation’s character in its money,” BoE Governor Andrew Bailey said in a statement Thursday, highlighting the breadth of Turing’s achievements.
“He was gay too, and as a result, he was treated terribly,” Bailey said. “By placing it on our new 50-pound polymer banknote, we celebrate its achievements and the values it symbolizes.”
GCHQ chief Jeremy Fleming said the image of Turing in the note was an iconic moment.
“Turing was embraced for his brilliance and pursued for being gay. Their legacy is reminiscent of the value of embracing all aspects of diversity, but also the work we still have to do to become truly inclusive, ”said Fleming.
The BoE said it would launch the rainbow flag on Thursday from its main building on London’s Threadneedle Street.
The £ 50 bill is the highest value bill in the BoE. It will go into circulation on June 23, Turing’s birthday.
($ 1 = £ 0.7290)
Written by William Schomberg; Edited by Alexandra Hudson