Turing possessions return to Sherborne School

Alan Turing’s possessions return to Sherborne School

On Tuesday 22 August 2023, a repatriation ceremony was held at Sherborne School when HSI Special Agent Greg Werstch formally handed over to the Headmaster material from the School’s Turing Archive.

 The recovery of the material, which was removed without due authorisation from Sherborne School in 1984, was thanks in part to the diligence of the archival community. 

The possessions were seized in Colorado by the US Dept of Homeland Security Investigations in 2018, DOJ AUSA Laura Hurd and her team have been instrumental in the return of the archives, with the assistance of MET Inspector Alan Seldon and HSI Rep Dipesh Dattani from the US Embassy in London who also attended the ceremony.

Alan Turing is one of Sherborne School’s most distinguished alumni and this important material can be viewed digitally via the Alan Turing page on the School Archives website: https://oldshirburnian.org.uk/alan-turing/repatriated-material-from-sherborne-schools-alan-turing-archive/

Headmaster and CEO, Dr Dominic Luckett said:

‘Few people have had a greater positive impact upon the world than Alan Turing.  Although denied due recognition before his life came to a tragic and premature end in 1954, the extraordinary nature of his achievements is now finally being understood and celebrated.  His crucial work as a cryptanalyst at Bletchley Park and his enormous contribution to the development of computing and artificial intelligence were not merely of vital practical significance at the time but continue to underpin many of today’s most important intellectual and technological advances.  As a School, we are intensely proud of our association with Alan Turing and want to do all we can to preserve and promote his legacy.   As part of that, we take very seriously our responsibility to look after those items in our archives which relate to his time at Sherborne School and his subsequent life and work.  I am most grateful to all those, in the US and closer to home, who have worked so hard to ensure the safe return of these precious artefacts.’