Without Alan Turing your life would be very different!

Alan Turning worked in a government code breaking centre during the Second World War. Responsible for decrypting messages sent by the German’s he devised methods and techniques for breaking codes and providing our country with valuable information which assisted our war effort.  (Google: Alan Turing Enigma Machine)

Shortly after the war, he worked at the National Physical Laboratory where he created one of the first designs for a stored program computer. (This was a major first step in computing to perform complex tasks in fractions of a second which has led to us developing the technology we have now.

Turing committed suicide in 1954, his cleaner found him the next morning with an apple beside him.  It had a single bite taken from its side.  It was later determined that the apple was laced with cyanide.

Five months earlier after Turner’s relationship with another man was exposed, he was charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 the act that recrinimalised homosexuality.

For his punishment, he was given the choice between imprisonment or probation, provided he undertook hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido. He was chemically castrated by receiving oestrogen hormone injections.

They transformed his body. The man who had run a marathon in 2 hours and 46 minutes – when the world record was 2 hours and 25 minutes – was reduced to a shadow of his former self. He grew breasts and described saying the process is shameful, horrible and humiliating.

Punished for being gay!  He had been let down by people he trusted and the county he served, not just in the war, but within the development of technology. We wouldn’t be able to live in our “Internet world” today without him.

So when you see the most well-known logo in computing (probably) please take a moment to consider its history, and the person behind the story. Alan Turing, the man who cracked the Enigma machine, and the father of modern computing today. The man who committed suicide after a turn of events which began with prejudice, ignorance and discrimination against homosexuality.

February is Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgender month; it aims to celebrate the lives and achievements of the LGBT community. Please visit LGBT Month for more information.