Alan Turing Petition

Apology to Brilliant Gay Mathematician Hounded to His Death

Alan Turing

The Alan Turing petition is a petition on the Number 10 website that calls upon the government to apologise posthumously to Alan Turing for the way he was treated before he died. It has attracted thousands of signatures, including from Professor Richard Dawkins.

Who Was Alan Turing?

You’re probably reading this article on your computer.  I’m writing it on mine.  We can both thank Alan Turing - one of the greatest mathematicians and computer scientists of all time who developed the ‘Turing Machine’ - basically one of the very first ancestors of the modern computer.

Not only that, Turing was an incredible mathematician and codebreaker - working at Bletchley Park in WW2 alongside the famous Enigma code-breaking machine.  Turing was gay, and his homosexuality directly lead to his death in 1954 at just 41 years old.

What Happened to Alan Turing?

Alan Turing's statue - poignantly holding an apple

Turing had the misfortune of being gay when gay sex was illegal, considered to be a mental illness, and was shrouded in shame.  He admitted his homosexuality after his home was broken into by his male lover and an accomplice.

This lead to him being charged with gross indecency and being given a choice of going to prison (not a comfortable thought especially for his particular ‘crime’) or being chemically castrated.  He chose the latter.

Not only that, but because of his conviction his security clearance at GCHQ was removed which meant he couldn’t continue his valuable work for the government (homosexuality was seen as a security risk for blackmail reasons).

Alan Turing died from cyanide poisoning on 7 June 1954 and suicide was ruled as the cause of death, although there are questions surrounding this.

In short he was denied the ability to use his brilliant mind, he was castrated, denied love, publicly shamed and probably denied a knighthood.  Ultimately he was denied the rest of his life.

Unanswered Questions

The biggest unanswered question about Alan Turing is the manner in which he died.  He died from cyanide poisoning after consuming half an apple.  His mother suspected foul play (the government may have considered he remained a significant security risk), although he may have deliberately left the cause of his death open to interpretation so as to give his mother some comfort (suicide being more painful to grieve).

Another question surrounds his gay lover, Arnold Murray.  Murray was 19 years old and their relationship was very young when he and an accomplice broke into his home.   It was the police questions which followed that exposed his sexual relations with another man.

Surely Alan Turing was naive to report the matter to the police?  Did he not consider the truth may come out about their relationship, and the consequences of that would be far more damaging than putting up with a break-in?  Maybe the powerful emotions surrounding love and sex short-circuited any rational decision making process in his logical mind.

Remembering Alan Turing

Alan Turing's blue plaque in London

Alan Turing’s work has already been widely acclaimed, and recognition includes the Turing Award, a play ‘Breaking the Code’, statues in Manchester and Guildford, a blue plaque in London, buildings and laboratories have been named after him…the list goes on.  However, this isn’t enough.

The way he was treated for simply being gay is shameful beyond words.  Alan Turing has directly benefited all of our lives - without his influence who knows whether computing would have developed as far as it has today. Would we have the freedom we have now if we had lost WW2 without the intelligence provided by his code-breaking efforts?

Richard Dawkins says in his book ‘The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing’:

“Turing arguably made a greater contribution to defeating the Nazis than Eisenhower or Churchill…thanks to Turing and his ‘Ultra’ colleagues at Bletchley Park, Allied generals in the field were consistently, over long periods of the war, privy to detailed German plans before the German generals had time to implement them.

After the war, when Turing’s role was no longer top-secret, he should have been knighted and fêted as a saviour of his nation.  Instead, this gentle, stammering, eccentric genius was destroyed, for a ‘crime’, committed in private, which harmed nobody.”
 

Sign the Alan Turing Petition

You can sign the petition here.  It takes less than a minute all-in.

The petition was started by the programmer John Graham-Cumming.

By David Abrehart

UPDATE!  The petition has now reached over 18,000 signatures and Peter Tatchell has just given his support, stating:

“Turing was one of an estimated 100,000 British gay men who were convicted for consenting, victimless same-sex relations during the twentieth century. Thousands were jailed. These men were criminalised for behaviour that was not a crime between heterosexual men and women.”

UPDATE! 10 September 2009.  Gordon Brown has officially apologised on behalf of the government.  A small excerpt:

“So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.”

(c) Copyright 2009.  All rights reserved.

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What do you think about this petition?  Is it favouritism to one man, or a significant step in reconciling terrible historic homophobia for all victims?  Please comment below: