Alan Turing, the mathematician who helped invent modern computing and break the Enigma code, will be the face of the new £50 note, the Bank of England announced today.

Turing, who is considered the father of computer science and artificial intelligence (AI), worked as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, playing a huge role in switching the advantage to the Allies in the battle for the Atlantic.

He was a pioneer of modern computing and proposed an experiment known as the ‘Turing Test’ to discover if a machine could seem human.

However, in March 1953, Turing was convicted of gross indecency for his relationship with a man and was banned from consulting with GCHQ because homosexuals were ineligible for security clearance.

Turing, who had agreed to chemical castration as part of his sentence, committed suicide the following year but did not receive a pardon until 2009.

In 2017, the ‘Alan Turing Law’, was passed that posthumously pardoned men cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts.