Letter from Bank of England accompanying £50 banknote

Letter from the Bank of England accompanying the acquisition of the new polymer £50 note featuring Alan Turing.

This letter recognises a remarkable person and their remarkable mind, Alan Turing.

It is addressed to the Director & Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group, Sir Ian Blachford, and is signed by Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England. The letter is dated 23 June 2021.

The letter describes how the £50 note is the fourth in the series of polymer notes to be issued. It says it is traditional to send organisations that have contributed to the information or design in some way, a note with a relevant serial number. The Science Museum Group hosted the events to launch the competition, and to reveal the winning scientist, who would feature on the note. Importantly, archives and objects relating to Turing’s life and achievements that are held in the museum were used to inform the design of the note. This note has the serial number AA01 001948. Significantly, 1948 was the year Alan Turing joined Manchester University’s Computing Machine Laboratory to work on a new stored-program computer.

The letter not only highlights Turing’s scientific legacy but also he discrimination he faced in his lifetime because of the UK's homophobic laws. It comments on his untimely death in 1954 at the age of 41, and states that ‘the £50 note serves as a reminder to us all of the discrimination that has taken place in the past and continues to be faced by many people today’.