HISTORY INVESTIGATION: ALAN TURING

INTRODUCTION

Historical injustice holds many unknown stories and hidden realities, and in some cases denies their
acknowledgment and merit to the world. These injustices were often due to reasons that nowadays
we would consider futile and foolish, such as one's sexuality; hence, in this essay I will explore how
far did the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885) deny Alan Turing’s recognition to the world, firstly
understanding who Alan Turing was, then by centralizing this Act in its context, and finally linking
it back to Alan Turing and the repercussions on his genius and on how the denial of his recognition
impacted the world.

One of the most important historical figures to which we owe a huge part of the success of the final
outcome of WW2 is Alan Turing. Turing’s discoveries have shaped the world and immensely
contributed to the end of the second world war, as he was the one whom developed the so called
“Bombe Machine” which allowed the british to decipher the encoded messages which the germans
communicated through the use of the “Enigma machine”. This enabled the British and the rest of
the allies to prevent attacks and know most of the future Axis moves. Turing probably has been
one of the greatest men England ever had, but a tremendous injustice was carried out against him
and, perhaps, one of the worst crimes one can commit against a person: obliterating him in his
most authentic identity and denying him of his recognition. Alan Turing was an undisputed genius,
an extremely sensitive, cultured man of incredibly deep and modern thought for his time, a person
in short whose work would bring immense glory to his country, but who had one unforgivable
fault: being homosexual. In England, as indeed in many other countries, homosexuality was
considered a distortion of human beings, a manifestation contrary to nature and even a crime
punishable on par with murder or other heinous crimes. During the Victorian era, which was
characterized by a strong strengthening of the degrading religious sense toward bigotry and
exasperation toward ideals of high morality and modesty, the pre-existing legislation was
tightened by the Criminal Law Amendment of 1885, and in particular, by Section 11 proposed by
liberal Member of Parliament Henry Labouchere, who even pushed in Parliament to provide for a
7-year sentence for those convicted of homosexual acts considered a manifestation of 'gross
indecency.'1 Parliament reduced the prison term to two years, enforceable with or without hard
labor.

1
United States, Congress, House of Commons , and Henry Labouchere. An Act to Make Further
Provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the Suppression of Brothels, and Other Purposes.
[Criminal Law Amendment], UK Parliament , 1885, pp. 6–7.
This infamous provision of the law made a multitude of victims over the years, the most illustrious
of whom were at the time Oscar Wilde, who served the full two years in prison and was deprived
of all his possessions, including his house in Chelsea, thus ending up in 'irreversible financial ruin,
and later Alan Turing who instead of being celebrated for his inventions and for saving Europe
from Nazism, was treated by the British government as a criminal to be punished and, more
importantly, to be hidden so as not to tarnish England's 'reputation. The Criminal Law Amendment
also established a limit of 16 years below which girls should not have intimate relations with adult
men, with liability for the latter in case they took advantage of the girls' young age. This rule came
into being primarily as a formal attempt to protect young people especially those from the poorer
classes, since among the poor there was frequent prostitution of young people and the
exploitation of the weaker ones, as well as the sale of minor children and the labor exploitation of
even the youngest children. Another reason was the raging of sexually transmitted diseases that
were beginning to afflict a large segment of the population. At the same time, that very bourgeois
society that was becoming more and more economically affirmed and promoting charitable works
in aid of the poor, hypocritically accepted that so many abuses were being carried out in silence
toward those who did not have enough strength and voice to be able to protect themselves in any
way. A society that shouted to the world about its achievements of industrial evolution and growth
and flaunted a great wealth of a few extremely wealthy classes won at the expense of the most
defenseless, which tended in every way to preserve an appearance of a morally balanced and
unassailable society. During the Victorian era the social feeling of aversion against homosexuality
was so deep-seated and strong that Labouchere's resolution 11 was debated and voted on in only
four minutes. Homosexuality was considered so sinful and reprehensible that it mattered little if
the relationships took place between consenting adults. The law struck down not only the act itself
but above all penalized the freedom of individuals by attempting to effectively control over
collective sexuality through the fear of really harsh punishments2. This morbid desire for control
remained very strong in English society for many years, impregnating the common spirit with the
conviction that the repression of certain sexual choices was to be condemned regardless and,
above all, that they were behaviors so damaging to the image of society that no trace or memory
should remain of them.

The extraordinary figure of Alan Turing remained neglected and hidden from the whole world for
many years, depriving him of his merits and recognition, all just so as not to tarnish England's
name. Certainly, because all documentation of the scientific and cryptographic activities carried
out at Bletchley Park remained secret for political, wartime, and international security reasons,
but also because it was not permissible for great England to celebrate and exalt a man of whom it
was ashamed, who was tainted by having committed 'gross indecency.' Turing's scientific
discoveries, had incredible importance as he is considered the father of modern computer science
and his decryption methods are nothing but the ancestors of modern algorithms. Turing also did a
great deal of research on artificial intelligence, anticipating and giving birth to a field of research
that owes so much to him. Suffering and in some ways a sense of marginalization were part of his

2
Fize, William. “The Homosexual Exception? the Case of the Labouchère Amendment.” Cahiers
Victoriens Et Édouardiens, Presses Universitaires De La Méditerranée, 9 June 2020,
https://journals.openedition.org/cve/7597#tocto1n1.
entire life, leaving him with scars that he carried throughout his life. Since high school he often had
to suffer harassment from the same classmates and this basically already made him feel different
and excluded from the rest of the world around him. Alan Turing in his work 'Natural Wonders'
mainly posed the question "What process of becoming determined my appearance on this
world?"3 This question was that of a biochemistry scholar who was not only questioning on a
philosophical level but was tackling a problem on a scientific level, trying to find in hormone
studies an answer to his questions. If his condition was scientifically explicable, here is how its
normality was explained! When Alan Turing was arrested in 1952 he gave a statement in which he
sincerely admitted everything that was charged against him as a crime, confessing to his
homosexual relationship and affirming that simply what he was charged with could not be
considered a crime since he believed it was right to follow his own inclinations and that his
conduct could not harm anyone4. Turing was faced with a hideous choice, either prison or
chemical castration; he chose the latter but suffered the terrible physical consequences of
overexposure to the massive doses of hormones he was injected with. On June 7, 1954, Alan
Turing committed suicide, no longer able to sustain the physical transformations that had
occurred or even the severe depression caused by the hormonal imbalances resulting from
chemical castration. It was not until 1967 that he received Royal Assent the "Sexual Offence Act,"
which allowed homosexual acts between adults over the age of 21. This law applied only to
England and Wales, and it took many years until parliament fully legalized homosexuality.5 Despite
the very important milestone achieved LGBT+ rights were still a long way from being achieved.
Turing had to wait until December 23, 2013, some sixty years after his death to receive an act of
'pardon' from the Queen that could erase the crime he was charged with, making Turing's story
even more absurd and miserable.

CONCLUSION

What should indignant us and make us reflect, is the mortification of the 'genius' suffered by Turing,
as also suffered by Oscar Wilde. Two illustrious sons of great England were brutally denigrated and
unjustly punished by the ambiguity of their Fatherland, which, while undeniably recognizing the
objective value of their works, failed to overcome that deep hypocrisy that rewards mediocrity and
homologation. These are some of the many examples that show how much historical injustice was
done, annihilating the souls of extraordinary minds like those of Alan Turing. The misery of the
state was shattered against the greatness of two minds that because of their uniqueness, their
extraordinary nature, could not be authentically understood. It was precisely the difficulty in
recognizing the magnificence of their work that resulted in the fear of not being able to fully control
3
Hodges, Andrew. “Chapter 8: L'ultima Spiaggia.” Alan Turing: Storia Di UN Enigma, Bollati
Boringhieri, Torino, 2015, p. 608.
4
Hodges, Andrew. Alan Turing: Storia Di UN Enigma. Bollati Boringhieri, 2015.
5
England, Congress, House of Commons, and Lord Arran. Sexual Offences Act 1967 (Amendment).
A Bill to Secure Equality of Treatment before the Law in Respect of Sexual Behaviour, Proquest LLC,
2007. Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/PU/1/1967/c60,
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationships/collectio
ns1/sexual-offences-act-1967/sexual-offences-act-1967/. Accessed 15 June 2022.
the objective manifestations of their intelligence. Throughout his life, Turing remained a hidden
genius, where his ideas and discoveries were ignored, given also the fact that few people could
understand their implications and the genius behind them. The Labouchere Amendment of 1885
deprived us of all that Alan Turing while still a very young man could have given to the whole world,
and when a singular genius like Turing is thwarted, somehow the progress of humanity is impeded.
The Criminal Law Amendment Act like many laws of the past, and unfortunately of the present as
well, are politically and socially expedient, they make no noise, they do not prompt reflection to
question, they maintain that appearance of tranquillity that those rulers who are not afraid to deal
with changes, cultural and social, so much liked and like even now. It does not appeal to those who
are afraid of progress. But Turing and Wilde were themselves progress, were utmost expressions of
that 'future' of that project of creation which is by its very nature unstoppable, which is so
overwhelming that it surpasses people and transcends centuries. The iniquity of that law thus
destroyed Alan Turing's life but stole from the world who knows what extraordinary advances and
benefits we could have enjoyed. We really should ask ourselves how many talents in the world are
misunderstood and not given a chance to emerge and assert themselves just because, perhaps, they
do not turn out to conform to the masses around them. History, however, has taught us that change
can never be stopped, but the effects can be slowed down, and never before can we say that Genius
won anyway.

Bibliography

Primary sources
England, Congress, House of Commons , and Henry Labouchere. An Act to Make Further Provision
for the Protection of Women and Girls, the Suppression of Brothels, and Other Purposes. [Criminal
Law Amendment], UK Parliament , 1885, pp. 6–7.

United States, Congress, House of Commons., and Lord Arran. Sexual Offences Act 1967
(Amendment). A Bill to Secure Equality of Treatment before the Law in Respect of Sexual
Behaviour, Proquest LLC, 2007. Parliamentary Archives, HL/PO/PU/1/1967/c60,
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationshi
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