Guildford is a town that has links to numerous well-known people, with the likes of actress Celia Imrie, author P.G. Wodehouse, and comedian Simon Bird all calling it the place of their birth. There are others that have slightly more tenuous ties to the area, with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll buying a house called The Chestnuts in the area. It is fair to say that Alan Turing fits more into the latter category than the former, spending numerous summers in Guildford after his parents bought a house in the town.
Who Is Alan Turing?
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Often considered to be the ‘father of modern computing’, Alan Mathison Turing was born in Maida Vale, London, on the 23rd of June, 1912. He may well have been born elsewhere in the British Empire, considering the fact that he was born in London when his father, Julius Mathison Turing, was on leave from a position with the Indian Civil Service of the British Raj Government in Chatrapur. His mother was Ethel Sara Turing, née Stoney, who was the daughter of the Chief Engineer of the Madras Railways.
The move back to Great Britain came about on account of the fact that both Julius and Ethel wanted their children to be brought up in the United Kingdom rather than India. He grew up in numerous different places, attending St Michael’s Primary School in St Leonards-on-Sea until he was nine and then being educated at Hazelhurst Preparatory School in Sussex. When he was 13 years old, he moved to Sherborne School, showing a natural inclination towards mathematics as well as science, in spite of the school being more aimed at the classics.
He later applied for a scholarship to study at Trinity and King’s Colleges in Cambridge, earning one for the latter. He gained a first-class honours degree in mathematics, later pioneering the theatrical model known as the Turing Machine. This would go on to form the basis of modern computing, being considered by many to be the originator of computer science and the theory of Artificial Intelligence. During the Second World War, Turing operated as a codebreaker and helped to crack the German Enigma code whilst working at Bletchley Park.
The ‘Turing Test’ is a measure of a machine’s ability to show intelligent behaviour, which for many years was seen as being unbreakable. It was used to test the difference between a machine and a human, with many believing that the Large Language Models of Artificial Intelligence that are in use in the modern era are able to pass the Turing Test. That being said, there are others who believe that they do not do enough to truly pass the Turing Test. Turing himself was persecuted for being gay, dying in 1954 from cyanide poisoning.
Turing & Guildford
In 1927, Alan Turing’s parents bought a house on Ennismore Avenue in Guildford. The house, which was located close to Stoke Park, is where Turing would spend his summer holidays when he was away from school. It would later receive a blue plaque to recognise its importance in the life of one of the most influential mathematicians that the United Kingdom has ever produced. It is, perhaps, a mark of this country’s ongoing attitude towards LGBTQ+ people that he got recognition after his death, but during his life his sexuality was determined to be his most important trait.
Although he only spent fleeting moments in Guildford, Turing did continue to visit the town throughout his life, up to the moment that it was so cruelly taken away from him. There is evidence of Alan acting as the best man for his brother John when he got married in Guildford, for example. John would later say of Alan, “In a short life he accomplished much, and to the roll of great names in the history of his particular studies added his own”. The family decision to buy a house in the town came in the wake of his father’s retirement.
Visited Family in Guildford
Unsurprisingly, given the nature of Guildford as a location, the family would enjoy long walks together in the likes of the North Downs and nearby Stoke Park. As a keen student of astronomy, Turing would spend hours staring up at the night sky and drawing what he could see. In the wake of his brother’s wedding to Joan Humphreys on the 25th of August, 1934, Turing would visit the family and often cause his nieces great delight by solving the puzzles that were found in the crackers that were used with the Christmas dinner, amongst other things.
At the beginning of the Second World War, his parents separated. His father moved to London, whilst his mother continued to live in locations around Guildford, including Epsom Road and South Hill. His father died in 1947, causing Alan to increase the number of visits that he paid to his mother in the town. His final visit to Guildford reportedly came in the Christmas of 1953, which would end up being around six months before he died. This was in spite of the fact that he was awarded an Order of the British Empire for his work on the Enigma code.
During his visits to his mother in the years before his death, the pair would take walks around Guildford and discuss the various projects that he was working on. As a keen athlete, he would also go for long runs around the Guildford area, including an 18-mile run between where he lived in Hampton and his mother’s house in the town. So keen was he on running, in fact, that he took part in the Summer Olympic Trials in 1948 and came fifth. Whilst not one of those born and raised in Guildford, he will forever be associated with the town.