 | Turing Papers Reprieve as they Fail to Sell at AuctionReleased : Nov 23, 2010 The Turing Papers to be auctioned today at Christie's failed to sell which gives the Bletchley Park Trust time to raise more funds to acquire them. Although the Trust are disappointed not to have acquired the Turing Papers at today's auction, it is hopeful that this will give more time to gather the momentum of the campaign and to engage further support.
Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust, said, "We are delighted at the level of support we have seen for this campaign. Public support for Gareth Halfacree's appeal has been tremendous and, along with the generous Google pledge, proves that people believe that the Turing papers belong at Bletchley Park. We hope that as the Papers have not sold this gives us an opportunity to gather further support in order to acquire them."
Google Pledge $100,000 Toward Securing Turing Papers for Bletchley ParkReleased : 23 Nov 2010
Google announces its pledge of $100,000 to help secure the Turing Papers which are today being auctioned at Christies.
Google has stepped in at the eleventh hour to pledge $100,000 to the appeal to secure the Turing Papers for the Bletchley Park Trust. http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/press/pressrel/20101123_turing.html The papers are due to go to public auction today.
Simon Greenish, CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust, expressed his gratitude to Google, saying, "It would be absolutely superb if we could acquire these Papers in order to have them on public display and Google's generous pledge has moved us one step closer to achieving that. It would be wonderful if other organisations would follow Google's lead in helping to preserve an important part of our computing and codebreaking heritage".
Previous News Release below.
Bletchley Park Supporters Fight to Save Alan Turing PapersReleased : 18 Nov 2010
A campaign launched by an independent supporter of the Bletchley Park Trust faces a race against time to save what maybe the most complete collection of Turing’s works in the world.
Alan Mathison Turing was one of the pre-eminent WW2 Codebreakers; mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist who died tragically at the age of just 41 without having received public recognition for his wartime achievements.
Christie's is to auction off an impressive quantity of Turing's offprints, including fifteen of his eighteen published papers. It is thought to be the largest collection in the world, put together by Turing's friend and fellow Bletchley Park Codebreaker Professor Max Newman to whom Turing presented the offprints.
Gareth Halfacree, an independent supporter of the Bletchley Park Trust, has launched a campaign to raise the money needed to purchase the collection for permanent public display at Bletchley Park, saying “They belong in a dedicated museum, but Bletchley Park can't afford the £300,000 to £500,000 guide price. “As a result, I'm asking for volunteers to dig deep and see to it that these papers not only stay in this country, but stay where the public can see them and benefit from them. Let's save them from being locked away in the vaults of a private collector.” William Newman, the son of Max Newman, highlighted the importance of the collection, saying, “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. This has come about because Turing started to give offprints to Max Newman before he had published the Computable Numbers paper. He subsequently gained a large following, who were interested mainly in his follow-on work. In fact Turing published only 18 papers.” However, time is short to save these highly valuable papers for the nation. The auction takes place on the 23 November. To view the collection please visit; http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&pos=10&intObjectID=5370960&sid=5d471a41-553e-4a2d-b9ee-cf27e36133b8 Or to donate please visit, http://www.justgiving.com/turing-papers/ - ENDS -  |
