As we reported last week, a collection of Alan Turing's World War 11 papers went up for sale at Christies, London today. However, they failed to sell because the reserve price was not reached.
Despite a contribution from Google of $100,000 towards the purchase, Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing worked to break German ciphers during the Second World War, failed in their bid to ensure that the collection of Alan Turing's offprints remain in this country and on public display.
Bletchley Park had also raised £20,775.80 themselves but their bid fell well short of the £300,000-£500,000 guide price and the bidding only reached £240,000 this afternoon.
Simon Meacham, Developer Advocate at Google, said "Dr Turing is a hero to many of us at Google for his pioneering work on algorithms and the development of computer science."
Gareth Halfacree who organised the appeal on behalf of Bletchley Park said "They belong in a dedicated museum. Let's save them from being locked away in the vaults of a private collector."
Alan Turing, who lived in Wilmslow, was a brilliant mathematician, most famous for breaking the German Enigma codes during the Second World War. In 1999 Time Magazine named him as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century and last year Gordon Brown issued an apology for the "appalling"and "utterly unfair" treatment he received as a result of admitting to being homosexual.
In 1952 he was convicted of "gross indecency", after admitting to being homosexual, and was sentanced to chemical castration and given a series of injections of female hormones to reduce his sex drive. His security privileges were also withdrawn meaning he could no longer work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters. Turing killed himself two years later aged 41.
The collection of impressive papers up for auction today, which included 15 of his 18 published works, is thought to be the largest collection in the world, put together by Turing's friend Professor Maxwell Newman to whom Turing presented the offprints.
