Code-breaker and computer science pioneer Alan Turing is to be the face of new £50 note, the Bank of England announced today.
The polymer note will enter circulation by the end of 2021.
Making the announcement at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney, said: “Alan Turing was an outstanding mathematician whose work has had an enormous impact on how we live today.
“As the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, as well as war hero, Alan Turing’s contributions were far ranging and path breaking. Turing is a giant on whose shoulders so many now stand.”
Mr Turing was chosen after the Banknote Character Advisory Committee chose to celebrate the field of science on the new note.
This was followed by a six week public nomination period, when a total of 227,299 nominations were made.
A shortlist of 12 options - including mathematician Ada Lovelace and physicist Stephen Hawking - was then presented to Mr Carney, who made the final decision.
Celebrated code-breaker Mr Turing developed the theoretical underpinnings for the modern computer and worked at Bletchley Park during World War II, breaking the Enigma code.
He was posthumously pardoned by the Queen in 2013 having been convicted of gross indecency for his relationship with a man in the 1950s.
