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The father of computer science Alan Turing has been announced as the face of the new £50 polymer bank note.

Alan Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, which would go on to be renamed as the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in June 1946 and move to Cheltenham in 1951.

Making the announcement at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said: ""Alan Turing was an outstanding mathematician whose work has had an enormous impact on how we live today.

"As the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, as well as war hero, Alan Turing's contributions were far ranging and path breaking.

"Turing is a giant on whose shoulders so many now stand."

(Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

The new note is expected to enter into circulation by the end of 2021.

Best known for his work devising code-breaking machines during World War II, Turing played a pivotal role in the development of early computers first at the National Physical Labratory and later at the University of Manchester.

Who is Alan Turing?

Alan Turing was born on June 23 1912 in Maida Vale, London.

He studied mathematics at Kings College - Cambridge where he was awarded a first class honours degree in 1934 and subsequently obtained a PhD from Princeton in 1938.

He joined the forerunner to GCHQ in 1939 helping to break codes during World War II. Working closely with Joan Clarke and Polish counterparts, Turing designed the Bombe; a purpose built British cryptanalytic machine that helped to break the Enigma used by the Axis.

Following stints at Manchester University and the National Physical Laboratory in London he was prosecuted in 1952 for 'indecency over his relationship with another man in Manchester.'

During the trial the Head of Cryptanalysis at GCHQ, Hugh Alexander, spoke as a character witness on Turing's behalf, describing him as a national asset.

In March 1952, Turing pleaded guilty to the charges and underwent hormonal treatment intended to reduce his libido as part of his punishment.

On June 8 1954, Alan Turing took his own life.

In April 2016, the then-director of GCHQ apologised for the 'horrifying' treatment of Mr Turing.

What will the new £50 note feature?

A photo of Turing taken in 1951 by Elliott & Fry which is part of the Photographs Collection at the National Portrait Gallery.

A table and mathematical formulae from Turing’s seminal 1936 paper “On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem” Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society. This paper is widely recognised as being foundational for computer science. It sought to establish whether there could be a definitive method by which any theorem could be assessed as provable or not using a universal machine. It introduced the concept of a Turing machine as a thought experiment of how computers could operate.

The Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) Pilot Machine which was developed at the National Physical Laboratory as the trial model of Turing’s pioneering ACE design. The ACE was one of the first electronic stored-program digital computers.

Technical drawings for the British Bombe, the machine specified by Turing and one of the primary tools used to break Enigma-enciphered messages during WWII.

(Image: Mikal Ludlow Photography)

Who else was shortlisted?

The Bank of England said: "The shortlisted options demonstrate the breadth of scientific achievement in the UK, from astronomy to physics, chemistry to palaeontology and mathematics to biochemistry.

"The shortlisted characters, or pairs of characters, considered were Mary Anning, Paul Dirac, Rosalind Franklin, William Herschel and Caroline Herschel, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, Stephen Hawking, James Clerk Maxwell, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Ernest Rutherford, Frederick Sanger and Alan Turing."