Presentation folder accompanying £50 banknote

Presentation folder to transport the new polymer £50 featuring Alan Turing.

This limited-edition folder carried the new Alan Turing £50 polymer bank note from the Bank of England to the Science Museum at the time of its donation in 2021.

This blue faux leather document folder is embossed in gold with the Bank of England logo and ‘£50 polymer banknote’. It was presented to the Science Museum Group on the 23 June 2021, containing both the £50 note and a letter addressed to Director & Chief Executive of the Science Museum Group, Sir Ian Blachford, signed by Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England.

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’.