Bletchley supporters race to save Turing papers

A supporter of the Bletchley Park Trust is attempting to raise funds to buy a large collection of Alan Turing's papers for the nation and house them at the former code-breaking centre.

Gareth Halfacree set up the online fund after hearing that the collection is due to be auctioned at Christie's on 23 November, and has raised £15,000 so far.

The fund has the support of Stephen Fry, but with the auction guide price set at £300,000 to £500,000 it faces a mountain to climb.

"We can't even contemplate a £500,000 purchase from the Trust itself," Simon Greenish, chief executive of the Bletchley Park Trust, told V3.co.uk.

"But we're three per cent there and only another 97 to go. We would be very comfortable having them here, and Bletchley would be an ideal place to have them displayed."

Bletchley Park is currently trying to raise funds to safeguard and restore the original buildings of Britain's first major code-breaking centre, and is unable to divert money to the Turing collection fund.

The collection contains offprints of 15 of Turing's 18 published papers, and was assembled by his friend and colleague Max Newman. It includes Turing's first published paper, as well as his initial plans for computing and artificial intelligence.

"The offprint collection's value derives mainly from its completeness; indeed it may be the most complete collection of Turing's works in the world," said Newman's son William.

"This has come about because Turing started to give offprints to Max Newman before he had published the Computable Numbers paper."

Halfacree launched the campaign to stop the collection from leaving the country or being removed from public access by a private collector. However, he acknowledged the difficulty of the task.

"It's a big ask looking for £500,000, but if you work for a high-tech company, use a 'universal computer' or are in any way connected with modern computing, you owe Turing a debt of gratitude, and this could be a way to help repay that debt," he wrote on the campaign web site.