source: The Hindu
Alan Turing had a strong Madras connect through his parents
This is the birth centenary year of Alan Mathison Turing, the
father of computer science and artificial intelligence. With his concepts of
algorithm and computation, demonstrated with the theoretical construct of the
Turing Machine, he ushered in a revolution that is ongoing. He had a strong
Madras connect through his parents.
The Turing family was of ancient Scottish descent and several
members had done their bit for the establishment of the British empire. Robert
Turing was perhaps the first, for in 1729, he was appointed surgeon’s mate at
Fort St. David, Cuddalore.
His brother Dr. John was surgeon of the East India Company’s ship,
The Greenwich. Robert later became presidency surgeon and served in Madras from
1753 to 1762. Another John Turing and his brother William joined the Madras
civil services in the 1760s and served till the 1780s.
Captain James and Major Robert Turing served the Madras Army in
the 1790s. Major Robert succeeded the family’s hereditary baronetcy and his son,
yet another John, was a writer in the East India Company, posted at
Vishakapatnam where he died in 1801.
Alan’s father Julius, from the same lineage, passed the ICS in
1896, his specialisations being Indian law and the Tamil language. He joined
duty in Madras. In 1907, at Dublin, he married Ethel, daughter of Edward Waller
Stoney, the chief engineer of the Madras Railway Company (MRC), headquartered at
Royapuram.
Stoney designed the Tungabhadra bridge, wrote treatises on
mountain railways and bridges and also patented the Stoney silent punkah wheel,
an early improvement of the traditional punkah. He amassed a huge fortune and
lived at 1, Nungambakkam High Road. Stoney was the first shareholder of Spencer
& Co. and after retirement, became a director there. His elder brother
F.G.M. Stoney was also an old MRC hand. He retired early to England owing to ill
health and there made a lasting name for himself as a hydraulics engineer,
specialising in sluice design.
Julius and Ethel’s first son John was delivered at the Stoney
bungalow in Coonoor. Their second child, Alan, was conceived in Orissa, then a
part of Madras Presidency. The baby was delivered in England on June 23, 1912,
and destined to never see India. The boys were left with relatives and friends
while the parents sailed back and forth from India. In 1926, the Madras
connection was severed forever when Julius Turing resigned from the ICS in a
huff, incensed over A.Y.G. Campbell being appointed chief secretary of Madras.
Alan was to have a brilliant academic career at Cambridge and
during World War II, did path-breaking work in decoding German ciphers. The end
of the war, however, was to see him prosecuted for homosexuality , then a
criminal offence, and subjected to chemical castration. Turing died in 1954,
aged 48, from cyanide poisoning, whether by intent or accident is an unsolved
mystery.
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