Alan Mathison Turing wasnt just the gay mathematician and computer scientist who helped defeat the Nazis during World War II by cracking their Enigma code he was also a close friend to gay fellow British mathematician Norman Routledge.During Turings life, the two shared personal correspondences, academic paper drafts, and offprints rare, specialty excerpts from publications gifted between fellow academics and scholars, Popular Science reported. After Routledges death in 2013, the documents were moved into the London home of Routledges sister they stayed there for nearly a decade. Related Controversial Alan Turing sculpture unveiled in England The father of modern computing was a gay man. Does this sculpture capture his importance? However, the papers were rediscovered by Routledges nieces and nephews who had been told to clear out the home and to decide which items should go to the shredder and which ones shouldnt. The relatives found that several of the documents had been signed A.M. Turing. Suspecting their value, they sent the documents to Jim Spencer, director of Rare Books Auctions, a U.K. specialist in rare books. Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Nothing couldve prepared me for what I was about to find in that carrier bag, Spencer said in the auctions announcement. These seemingly plain papersperfectly preserved in the muted colours of their unadorned, academic wrappersrepresent the foundations of computer science and modern digital computing.In my heart, I knew it was the most important collection Id ever handled, so I gave it my all, he said, adding that he lost sleep the night before the auction, worried that no one would bid on them he was wrong.Though the documents had been valued at $53,800 to $80,700, the papers ended up raising nearly five times that amount. Turings 1936 paper On Computable Numbers sold for $279,912 alone, Popular Science reported.The greatest weight of responsibility for me was doing justice to the people involved: Alan Turing, his mother, and his good friend Norman Routledge, Spencer said.The human drama behind these papers was so captivating, and I wanted the spotlight to be on their lives as much as the papers themselves, regardless of monetary value, he added. The whole experience, from research to sale, has been something Ill cherish for the rest of my life. Alan Turings persecution, death, and eventual redemptionAfter World War II, in 1952, Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency because he admitted to having a relationship with a man who burgled his house. As punishment for his conviction, Turing was forced to undergo chemical castration by taking synthetic estrogen for a year.The medication rendered himimpotentand causedhim to develop gynecomastia, the enlargement of his breast tissue. On June 8, 1954, Turing died fromcyanide poisoning at the age of 41. Legal authorities ruled his death a suicide.He has since been recognized as one of the fathers of modern computer science: He designed one of the earliest computers, was hailed as a trailblazer in cryptography (codebreaking), and his theories laid the groundwork for the modern development of artificial intelligence. The British governmentformally apologized for its treatment of Turing, and Queen Elizabeth II officially pardoned him in 2013. One of his personal notebooks fetched over $1 million at a 2015 auction. In 2021, the Bank of England released the design for a new 50 bill that features Turings portrait. Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.