WW2 codebreaker Alan Turing to feature on new £50 note

He was a computing pioneer, a codebreaker and a war hero, who was cruelly persecuted for his sexuality.

Now Alan Turing has been named as the new face of the £50 note, described by the Bank’s Governor Mark Carney as “a giant on whose shoulders so many now stand”.

Turing’s work with the Enigma machine helped the Allies to crack Nazi codes in the Second World War, but just a few years later he was convicted of gross indecency for his relationship with a man.