The secret of the Meyers was, according to John, that ‘given minimum standards of hygiene and punctuality for meals and passable table-manners you could do more or less what you liked’. Ethel said that John and Alan ‘fitted very happily into the family life there and Alan enjoyed bicycling round the country and carrying out various experiments in a neighbouring wood. Letters tell of his coming in black all over and of his singeing his eyelashes as he fired the clay pipe he had made. Mrs Meyer wrote later that he was ‘always doing dangerous things’.
Alas, the sunny days at the Meyers were only brief. While all this liberty, science and self-directed experimentation had been fine and good, in order to move beyond Hazelhurst it would be necessary for Alan actually to pass Common Entrance.
In 1924 Julius Turing resigned in a huff from the ICS, and the Turing parents returned to Europe for good. And so, from Easter 1924, holidays were under a stricter regime. There was the serious matter of the handwriting to be tackled. Ethel said ‘[Alan’s] handwriting was so appalling that in the Easter holidays of 1924 when he was nearly twelve he and I settled down together to reform it, and for a time he took great pains and improved his handwriting beyond recognition, but by the end of the year it was reported to be “as bad as ever”’. Later in 1924 the Turings took up residence for the winter and spring months in a villa called Ker Sammy at Dinard, a coastal town in northern France, to ‘avoid the ruinous British income tax, lately raised to 4/3d in the pound’. Dinard had a well-established retirement community with all suitable facilities for the less-well-off former ICS, including a golf course, a bracing outdoor seawater swimming bath and a Church of England church. At Ker Sammy, while John went off hopefully with his tennis racket in search of girls, Alan was allowed to indulge in chemistry experiments in the cellar, with equipment given to him for Christmas, and to have some coaching in science from a Mr Rolf, a schoolmaster from Shrewsbury. And Mother pushed ahead with her own lessons in French. She need not have worried: ‘in 1925 he took the Common Entrance examination for Marlborough and with his usual aptitude for examinations he demolished the papers’. Alan was all set now to make his way at public school.
3
DIRECTION OF TRAVEL
THE COAL-MINERS had had enough. It was bad enough that their pay had been cut by about a third since the end of the war. The mine owners had threatened a further cut, which the Baldwin government fended off with the time-honoured ploy of a Royal Commission. On 10 March 1926 the Commission reported, recommending a new settlement, which included a further reduction in miners’ pay and a longer working day. The mine owners gave their workers an ultimatum: accept these terms or be locked out of the workplace after 1 May. The Trades Union Congress was not impressed.
On Sunday 2 May 1926 Alan Turing caught the ferry from St Malo, the port town just a stone’s throw across the River Rance from Dinard. Alan was due to join his new school at Sherborne the following day. Mother’s moral maxims were clear: ferry to Southampton; Southern Railway to Salisbury; change for the Exeter service; alight at Sherborne; remember to check tickets, money, passport and keys at each point; hire porters as necessary to assist with trunk, bicycle and other impedimenta.
Unfortunately Ethel wasn’t negotiating with the TUC. The TUC brought out the printers, dockers, ironworkers and steelworkers in a strike in sympathy with the miners, together with the railwaymen and other transport workers. The General Strike was timed to begin on Monday 3 May. Alan’s ferry docked in Southampton just hours after the country had been shut down.
May 5th Wednesday
Westcott House
Sherborne
Dorset
Dear Mother & Daddy
On ship found that all railway services were cancelled except for milk. [Porter 6d. Breakfast 1/6. Registration 4/-. Berth 1/-. Ticket 14/-.]1 Funnily enough heard someone say in Dinard that they would have to go to London in an empty milk can. Good crossing and sleep. Buses to Salisbury but noone knew about farther on from there here. Would not take my bycycle so could not supplement one with other & could not walk with all that lugge far so I cycled as programme left luggage with baggage master started out of docks about 11 oclock got map for 3/- including Southampton missing Sherborne by about 3 miles. Noted where Sherborne was just outside. With an awful strive found General Post Office sent wire O’Hanlon2 1/-. Found cycle shop had things done 6d left 12 o’clock had lunch 7 miles out 1/4 loaf 3/6 went on to Lyndhurst 3 miles got apple 2d went on to Burley 8 miles pedal a bit wrong had it done 6d went on Ringwood 4 miles.
The streets in Southampton were full of people who had struck. Had a lovely ride through the New Forest and then over a sort of moor into Ringwood & quite flat again to Wimborne. Just near Blandford some nice downs & suddenly merely undulating near all the way here but the last mile was all downhill. The people at Blandford were very amused. Its an awful nuisance here without any of my clothes or anything. Mr O’Hanlon is v. nice. Fancy being called ‘teacher’ though.3 It’s rather hard getting settled down. Do write soon. There was no work on Wednesday except for ‘Hall’ or prep4. And then its a business finding my classrooms what books to get but I will be more or less settled down after a week or so. The matron’s name is Miss Crawley & she talks good brogue. I do not need any eggs for tea or anything of that sort. Anyhow if I did need it I would have to order the jam. [[??] do you mean me to]1 We will begin early Hall work on Monday. We go to bed at 9 or 9.30 & will get up at 6.30 only having 9 hrs sleep.
Alan in Dinard, shortly before the bicycle ride.
Yr Loving son Alan.
Please find Kitty’s address & send it to me. No mastiffs seen yet. I am in a choir of sorts. Sending back £1-0-1 in £ note & penny stamp
Alan had arrived. Late, untidy, in his own unorthodox yet practical way, and without assistance from Mother’s moral maxims. His exploit even made it to the local paper. Sherborne was going to be a turning point in Alan’s life.
The decision that Alan should go to Sherborne, rather than follow John to Marlborough, was significant: both John and Mother wanted to claim credit for the choice of school; both recognised that it was Sherborne that enabled Alan to develop in the way that he wanted, rather than force him onto the traditional public-school path leading to a career in the Army, the Indian Civil Service or the professions. Of the 242 pages of John’s unpublished autobiography, 33 or so are devoted to the trauma of his time at Marlborough. John was the more adaptable of the boys: if Marlborough could not suit him, how much more difficult it would be for Alan. Nevertheless, Alan had been put down for Marlborough and satisfied their requirements for the Common Entrance. But he had been allowed another go in the Lent term of 1926, and satisfied Sherborne’s (higher) requirements, and so it was to Sherborne that Alan had headed on that bicycle ride.
Three Rs
Sherborne was not an ‘Empire’ school, like Bedford: only 6% of the boarders’ families were serving in colonies overseas in 1905. Nor was Sherborne at the forefront of intellectualism; boys’ schools were of longer establishment and more conservative, and had had more time to develop traditions than newcomers like Cheltenham Ladies’ College. The school had been deservedly criticised in a Board of Education Report by HM Inspectors in 1905. At that stage, Sherborne had only reluctantly and partially moved into line with the Taunton Commission’s recommendations, the purpose of which was to move the public schools away from a curriculum providing a ‘largely “ornamental” education that, at best, rendered their sons “good cricketers” and “indifferent classicists”’. Canon Westcott’s Sherborne was solid on the three Rs: rugby, religion, and relentless Latin. The Board of Education said: ‘The bias of the School is predominantly classical and, although Mathematics, Science, and Modern Languages are by no means neglected, the best work is classical and other subjects suffer from being regarded as of secondary importance. The cleverer boys almost always find their way to the classical side and, in consequence, on the modern side, work of the 6th Form type which should foster intellect
ual ambition may be said scarcely to exist.’
But things had changed since then. In 1908 Westcott had retired and, after a brief interval, Nowell Charles Smith was appointed in his place in September 1909. He was the first layman to be appointed in 250 years, and while firmly anchored in the classical tradition, Nowell Smith’s agenda was to modernise. His first report to the governors announced: ‘I have provided that all boys, whether Classical or Modern, should pass through a course of Elementary Physics and Chemistry, when they have reached the middle part of the School. In our present stage of civilization, some acquaintance with the elements of natural science must be regarded as one of the most obviously desirable parts of a liberal education.’ Nowell Smith wanted his boys to be rounded-out, practical, well-equipped for a variety of careers. By 1926, towards the end of Nowell Smith’s tenure, this culture was well-established, encouraging teachers of quality in the mathematics and science departments. New science teaching facilities were built in 1910 to supplement the ‘old silk mill’ which the 1905 inspectors had sniffed at. (These buildings were still in use for physics and chemistry teaching when I attended Sherborne in the 1970s; they were perfectly all right then despite the historic – and interesting – use of the chemistry building as a silk mill. Only recently has Sherborne’s science teaching moved to a shiny, modern, purpose-built laboratory.)
Ethel Turing had taken the measure of the Nowell Smith regime. While Alan was trying to get his Latin into shape for the Common Entrance exam, Ethel was visiting Sherborne.
Before Alan went to Sherborne I had met Mrs Nowell Smith and given some hints about what to expect. She contrasted my description with the more favourable accounts given by other parents of their boys. Though he had been loved and understood in the narrower homely circle of his preparatory school, it was because I foresaw the possible difficulties for the staff and himself at a public school that I was at such pains to find the right one for him, lest if he failed in adaptation to public school life he might become a mere intellectual crank. It will be seen later how Sherborne School justified Mr. Nowell Smith’s hopes and mine.
Alan seemed to fit in, just about. Enough of Canon Westcott’s sportive regime survived to ensure that rugby was compulsory, as were inter-house Swedish drill competitions. Alan participated in these, of course, but from the start (when he showed the chemistry master his home-brewed iodine, cooked up from Dinard seaweed in the Ker Sammy basement) he was pleased to be in a place where science and maths counted as much as Ovid and Virgil.
Alan Turing aged 16.
Initially all seemed to be going well, or at least not badly. Alan seemed to cope with the initiation ceremonies (such as singing a song, giving the older boys plenty to laugh at), fagging duties, and other heartinesses of senior boarding-school life.
Fagging starts for us next Tuesday. It is run on the same principle as the Gallic councils that tortured & killed the last man to arrive; here one fagmaster calls & all his fags run, the last to arrive getting the job. You have to have cold showers in the morning here, like cold baths at Marlborough.
After-dinner speeches
The business with the bicycle ride had built up a store of credibility on which Alan drew for the first few terms. His school reports were all right, particularly if you focused on the maths.
• Summer Term, 1926: ‘House Report. Quite a good start. He appears self-contained & is apt to be solitary. This is not due to moroseness: but simply I think to a shy disposition. GOH.’ ‘Very good promising work. I am glad to promote him. Nowell Smith, Headmaster.’ On the back, in GOH’s handwriting, is the following, probably added after the front page was completed: ‘I am quite pleased with his start; He’s a very grubby person at times. I hope Ireland will de-ink him.’
• Michaelmas Term, 1926: ‘Mathematics. Works well. He is still very untidy. He must try to improve in this respect. MBE.’ ‘House Report. Slightly less dirty and untidy in his habits: & rather more conscious of a duty to mend his ways. He has his own furrow to plough, & may not meet with general sympathy: he seems cheerful, though I’m not always certain he really is so. GOH.’
• Lent Term, 1927: ‘Mathematics. Very good. He has considerable powers of reasoning and should do well if he can quicken up a little and improve his style. JHR.’ ‘House Report. He is frankly not one who fits comfortably for himself into the ordinary life of the place – on the whole I think he is tidier. GOH.’ ‘He should do very well when he finds his metier: but meantime he would do much better if he would try to do his best as a member of this school – he should have more esprit de corps. Nowell Smith, Headmaster.’
By late 1927 the picture emerging from the reports was rather less tolerant. The well of credibility was drying up, and the exasperation sometimes boiled over into rage:
• Summer Term, 1927: ‘Mathematics. Not very good. He spends a good deal of time apparently in investigations in advanced mathematics to the neglect of his elementary work. A sound ground work is essential in any subject. His work is dirty. JHR.’ ‘House Report. No doubt he is a strange mixture: trying to build a roof before he has laid the foundations. He is mistaken in acting as if idleness and indifference will procure release from uncongenial subjects. GOH.’ ‘I hope he will not fall between two stools. If he is to stay at a Public School he must aim at becoming educated. If he is to be solely a scientific specialist, he is wasting time at a Public School. Nowell Smith, Headmaster.’
• Michaelmas Term, 1927: ‘English Subjects. I append one sheet of a recent History Paper, as it probably says more eloquently than I can where his weakness lies. AHT-R.’ ‘House Report. I have seen cleaner productions than this specimen, even from him. No doubt he is very aggravating: & he should know by now that I don’t care to find him boiling heaven knows what witches’ brew by the aid of two guttering candles on a naked wooden window sill. However, he has borne his afflictions very cheerfully: & undoubtedly has taken more trouble, e.g. with physical training. I am far from hopeless. GOH.’ ‘He is the kind of boy who is bound to be rather a problem in any school or community, being in some respects definitely anti-social. But I think in our community he has a good chance of developing his special gifts & at the same time learning some of the art of living. Nowell Smith, Headmaster.’
• Michaelmas Term, 1927: ‘English Subjects. I can forgive his writing, though it is the worst I have ever seen, & I try to view tolerantly his unswerving inexactitude and slipshod, dirty work, inconsistent though such inexactitude is in a utilitarian; but I cannot forgive the stupidity of his attitude towards sane discussion on the New Testament. AHT-R. Latin. He ought not to be in this form of course as far as form subjects go. He is ludicrously behind. AHT-R.’
This outburst, from Mr Trelawny-Ross, is explained in a note added by Ethel Turing to the report: Alan had been caught doing algebra during a divinity lesson. Not surprisingly, the arrival of a report from Sherborne might bring on a dudgeon in Dinard. John Turing again:
Mother was constrained to suppress every report until my father had been fortified by breakfast and a couple of pipes. Alan would then be given a lecture in my father’s study. His only recorded comments were ‘Daddy should see some of the other boys’ reports’ and ‘Daddy expects school reports to read like after dinner speeches.’ Personally I found it a good time to be out of the house.
Setting aside the exasperation of schoolmasters like Trelawny-Ross, what shines through the reports is the perceptiveness of Nowell Smith’s remarks, and indeed those of Geoffrey O’Hanlon, the housemaster to whom Alan had sent his telegram from Southampton in May 1926 – a pen-portrait which would remain more-or-less accurate for the whole of Alan’s adult life. John was wrong when he said that ‘the only person who was forever exasperated with Alan, constantly nagging him about his dirty habits, his slovenliness, his clothes and his offhand manners (and much else, most of it with good reason) was my mother’. Ethel was not fighting alone. Back in England the establishment was also trying to get Alan to conform, and exaspera
tion was not the only remedy available. The problem and the solution were in the hands of O’Hanlon, who had to choose another boy to share a study with Alan when he graduated from the day room in which junior boys lived. O’Hanlon roped in Matthew Blamey, hoping that the mild and well-organised Blamey might be able to instil order, discipline, punctuality, and an appreciation of things other than maths and science, into the wayward Turing. For more than a year Blamey endured Turing’s untidiness and witches’ brews and attempted fruitlessly to get Alan to turn up to chapel on time. He even took Alan along to the Gramophone Society. Eighty years later, Blamey doubted that he had made any difference.
Geoffrey O’Hanlon’s house was a model boarding house, attracting glowing praise in a 1930 Board of Education inspection report. After the usual intensely all-male classical education at Rugby and Oxford, O’Hanlon had dedicated his life to Sherborne School. He was appointed just before the end of Canon Westcott’s regime, acquiring the nickname ‘Teacher’ as perpetual form-master for Form 4a – the brighter boys in middle school. Having a role in the school’s Officer Training Corps, O’Hanlon served in France from 1914 to 1917, leading a mixed group of men, and winning the MC. An apparently confirmed bachelor1 (like so many schoolmasters at Sherborne at that time), he returned to teaching in 1919, and bought a house. In those days, housemasters typically owned their own houses (so the boys would ask ‘whose house are you in?’ rather than ‘which house are you in?’) and were responsible for all the appointments. The inspectors didn’t much care for this state of affairs, even though the housemasters took on the financial burden of improvements – in O’Hanlon’s case, extending the premises substantially. The house he built was not beautiful: ‘probably the best in the school, but somewhat gaunt. It is a fact that in the recent war an American soldier in all good faith asked a delighted occupant whether this was the town penitentiary.’ In 1925 O’Hanlon gifted the house, now renamed Westcott House after the ex-headmaster, to the school, subject to the school taking over his £5,000 mortgage. From then on, O’Hanlon paid rent, and was put at risk of being ejected in favour of a younger man. This was dedication beyond any usual measure.
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