Alan Turing Masterpieces "Almost Shredded" By Owners Fetch $625,000 At Auction

A collection of scientific papers from English mathematician, codebreaker, and father of computer science, Alan Turing, has sold for £465,400 (US$625,000) at auction after narrowly avoiding being shredded. The works include possibly the most famous theoretical paper in the history of computer science, On Computable Numbers, and many other works that "represent the foundations of computer science and modern digital computing" according to the auctioneers.

Alan Turing is widely considered the father of computer science for his work on the theory of computers, which he developed in the 1930s, and his invention of the Turing machine, a model of computational devices aimed at testing the limits of what can and cannot be calculated. As well as this, the London-born mathematician is famed for top-secret work at Bletchley Park in World War II, where he and his team successfully cracked the encryption system used by Nazi Germany using the world's first large-scale electronic, programmable computer, named Colossus.

Turing was famously treated appallingly by the country he significantly helped fight in WWII. Historians estimate that the code-breaking operation shortened the war by 2-4 years, particularly breaking the Enigma code. But after the war, and more incredible work in computing, on March 31, 1952, Turing was convicted of "gross indecency" for his relationship with another man by the British courts, and faced imprisonment or chemical castration. He died by suicide two years later and was posthumously pardoned in 2013. 

After his death, his mother Ethyl gifted "offprints" of his work – papers printed and distributed among academics and extremely rare – to friend and fellow mathematician, Norman Routledge. 

According to Rare Book Auctions, when Routledge died in 2013, the task of sorting through his contents fell to his sisters and ended up stored in a loft. His nieces came across the papers years later and considered shredding everything, but fortunately, they thought they should check with the other nieces and nephews first. 

“One cousin felt the Turing and Forster papers might be of interest to collectors. After taking them home for a closer look, she decided to attend a local valuation day hosted by Hansons Auctioneers, who consigned them for research with their specialist saleroom, Rare Book Auctions," one of the nieces said. "We were bowled over by the valuations and level of enthusiasm.”

Thankfully, the works were not shredded. Jim Spencer, director of Rare Book Auctions, described the papers as “the most important archive I’ve ever handled.”

“Nothing could’ve prepared me for what I was about to find in that carrier bag. These seemingly plain papers – perfectly preserved in the muted colours of their unadorned, academic wrappers – represent the foundations of computer science and modern digital computing," Spencer said.

“Literature has always been my forte, not mathematics, so the past few months of intensively researching and cataloguing these papers has left me feeling that Alan Turing was superhuman. For me, it’s like studying the language of another planet, something composed by an ultra-intelligent civilisation."

The offprints include The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis, Turing's last major published work, and a work which has become a basic model in theoretical biology, describing "Turing patterns".

Other works in the collection include a signed PhD dissertation from 1938-39, his own personal copy. The papers sold for £465,400 ($625,000) at auction, around three times what they were expecting, which is certainly a better end than being shredded.