It is 100 years since Bletchley codebreaker Alan Turing famously rode his bicycle 60 miles from Southampton to Sherborne to attend school.
A free exhibition at The Sherborne traces back to May 1926, when at the age of 13, Turing was enrolled at Sherborne School, then an independent boarding school, where he boarded at Westcott House.
Turing’s first day of term coincided with the 1926 General Strike.
He had already travelled alone from Dinard in France, where his family were living, taking the ferry from Saint-Malo to Southampton, from where he intended to travel by train to Sherborne.
However, on arriving in England and discovering that no trains were running, Turing sent a telegram to his housemaster Geoffrey O’Hanlon informing him that he would be a day late.
Having brought his bicycle with him from France, he bought a map and pedalled the 97 kilometres to Sherborne.
This extraordinary story and many others from his early life are brought together in Turing Before Bletchley, a fascinating display of archive material, photographs, school reports, transcripts and correspondence.
The Sherborne’s exhibition looks beyond Turing the codebreaker, to explore the young man whose ideas and relationships developed during his school years in the town.
Visitors can also see a rare replica of the Enigma machine at The Sherborne, placing Turing’s early life and personal story alongside the wider history of his wartime work, mathematics, computing and his extraordinary legacy.
Turing Before Bletchley will be further accompanied by a programme of talks, family activities and codebreaking events throughout the autumn, including STEM workshops for children and special events across the October half term holiday.
Alan Turing’s schooldays in Sherborne
“Before Bletchley Park, before the Enigma machine and before Turing became one of the defining minds of the 20th century, there was Sherborne,” says Liz Gilmore, CEO of The Sherborne.
“Our new exhibition will also explore the meeting point between art, music, mathematics and early computing, reflecting The Sherborne’s wider ambition to bring different disciplines together and inspire curiosity.”
■ The exhibition will run daily, 10am-5pm, until January 3 at The Sherborne, Newland, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3JG.