Editing Alan Turing (section)

==Death==
[[File:Turing_Plaque.jpg|thumb|right|A [[blue plaque]] on the house at 43 Adlington Road, [[Wilmslow]], where Turing lived and died<ref name=copperfolly/>]]
On 8 June 1954, at his house at 43 Adlington Road, [[Wilmslow]], Turing's housekeeper found him dead.<ref name=copperfolly>{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210703105309/https://assets.savills.com/properties/GBWSRSWIS210139/WIS210139_WIS21003746.PDF|archive-date=3 July 2021|url=https://assets.savills.com/properties/GBWSRSWIS210139/WIS210139_WIS21003746.PDF|website=savills.com|author=Anon|year=2021|title=Turing's House: Copper Folly, 43 Adlington Road, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 2BJ}}</ref> A post mortem was held that evening, which determined that he had died the previous day at age 41 with [[cyanide poisoning]] cited as the cause of death.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://turingarchive.kings.cam.ac.uk/material-given-kings-college-cambridge-1960-amtk/amt-k-6|title=Post Mortem Examination|website=Turing Digital Archive|access-date=26 August 2024|archive-date=15 July 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240715235055/https://turingarchive.kings.cam.ac.uk/material-given-kings-college-cambridge-1960-amtk/amt-k-6|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alan-Turing#toc330986 |title=Alan Turing. Biography, Facts, & Education |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=11 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171011184445/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alan-Turing#toc330986 |archive-date=11 October 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> When his body was discovered, an apple lay half-eaten beside his bed, and although the apple was not tested for cyanide,<ref>{{Harvnb|Hodges|1983|p=488}}</ref> it was speculated that this was the means by which Turing had consumed a fatal dose.

Turing's brother, John, identified the body the following day and took the advice given by Dr. Greenbaum to accept the verdict of the [[Inquests in England and Wales|inquest]], as there was little prospect of establishing that the death was accidental.<ref name="reflections">{{cite book|title=Reflections of Alan Turing|last=Turing|first=Dermot|publisher=The History Press |year=2021 |isbn=9781803990125}}</ref> The inquest was held the following day, which determined the cause of death to be suicide.<ref name=":2" /> Turing's remains were cremated at [[Woking Crematorium]] just two days later on 12 June 1954, with just his mother, brother, and Lyn Newman attending,<ref>{{cite book|title=Alan Turing: Guildford's best kept secret|last=Backhouse|first=Paul|publisher=Guildford Town Guides |year=2016}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Hodges|1983|p=529}}</ref> and his ashes were scattered in the gardens of the crematorium, just as his father's had been.<ref name="hodges2012">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EpAl0piM38cC |title=Alan Turing: The Enigma |last=Hodges |first=Andrew |date=2012 |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-1-4481-3781-7 |access-date=16 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190117070027/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EpAl0piM38cC |archive-date=17 January 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> Turing's mother was on holiday in Italy at the time of his death and returned home after the inquest. She never accepted the verdict of suicide.<ref name=reflections/>

Philosopher [[Jack Copeland]] has questioned various aspects of the coroner's historical verdict. He suggested an alternative explanation for the cause of Turing's death: the accidental inhalation of cyanide fumes from an apparatus used to [[electroplating|electroplate]] gold onto spoons. The [[potassium cyanide]] was used to [[Gold#Chemistry|dissolve the gold]]. Turing had such an apparatus set up in his tiny spare room. Copeland noted that the autopsy findings were more consistent with inhalation than with ingestion of the poison. Turing also habitually ate an apple before going to bed, and it was not unusual for the apple to be discarded half-eaten.<ref name = "Copeland">{{cite news | first = Roland | last = Pease | title = Alan Turing: Inquest's suicide verdict 'not supportable' | url = https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092 | work = [[BBC News]] | date = 23 June 2012 | access-date = 23 June 2012 | quote = We have&nbsp;... been recreating the narrative of Turing's life, and we have recreated him as an unhappy young man who committed suicide. But the evidence is not there. | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120623101625/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18561092 | archive-date = 23 June 2012 | url-status = live }}</ref> Furthermore, Turing had reportedly borne his legal setbacks and hormone treatment (which had been discontinued a year previously) "with good humour" and had shown no sign of despondency before his death. He even set down a list of tasks that he intended to complete upon returning to his office after the holiday weekend.<ref name = "Copeland"/> Turing's mother believed that the ingestion was accidental, resulting from her son's careless storage of laboratory chemicals.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5685694 |title=TURING, Ethel Sara (1881–1976, mother of Alan Turing). Series of 11 autograph letters to Robin Gandy, Guilford, 28 July 1954 – 11 June 1971 (most before 1959), altogether 29 pages, 8vo (2 letters dated 17 May and 26 May 1955 incomplete, lacking continuation leaves, occasional light soiling) |website=christies.com |access-date=6 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190207015923/https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5685694 |archive-date=7 February 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> Turing biographer [[Andrew Hodges]] theorised that Turing deliberately made his death look accidental in order to shield his mother from the knowledge that he had killed himself.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hodges|1983|pp=488, 489}}</ref>

Doubts on the suicide thesis have been also cast by [[John W. Dawson Jr.]] who, in his review of Hodges' book, recalls "Turing's vulnerable position in the Cold War political climate" and points out that "Turing was found dead by a maid, who discovered him 'lying neatly in his bed'—hardly what one would expect of "a man fighting for life against the suffocation induced by cyanide poisoning." Turing had given no hint of suicidal inclinations to his friends and had made no effort to put his affairs in order.<ref>{{cite journal |last= Dawson Jr. |first=John W. |author-link=John W. Dawson Jr. |title="Review of Andrew Hodges. Alan Turing: the enigma" |journal=[[Journal of Symbolic Logic]] |volume=50 |issue=4 |date=December 1985 |pages=1065–1067 |doi=10.2307/2273992 |jstor=2273992 |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/2273992}}</ref>

Hodges and a later biographer, [[David Leavitt]], have both speculated that Turing was re-enacting a scene from the [[Walt Disney]] film ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)|Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs]]'' (1937), his favourite fairy tale. Both men noted that (in Leavitt's words) he took "an especially keen pleasure in the scene where the Wicked Queen immerses her apple in the poisonous brew".<ref>{{Harvnb|Leavitt|2007|p=140}} and {{Harvnb|Hodges|1983|pp=149, 489}}</ref>
[[File:Alan Turing OBE.jpg|thumb|Turing's OBE currently held in [[Sherborne School]] archives]]

It has also been suggested that Turing's belief in [[fortune-telling]] may have caused his depressed mood.<ref name="hodges2012" /> As a youth, Turing had been told by a fortune-teller that he would be a genius. In mid-May 1954, shortly before his death, Turing again decided to consult a fortune-teller during a day-trip to [[Lytham St Annes|St Annes-on-Sea]] with the Greenbaum family.<ref name="hodges2012"/> According to the Greenbaums' daughter, Barbara:<ref name="dowd">{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27701207 |title=What was Alan Turing really like? |author=Vincent Dowd |publisher=BBC |date=6 June 2014 |access-date=16 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190117020715/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27701207 |archive-date=17 January 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref>

{{blockquote|But it was a lovely sunny day and Alan was in a cheerful mood and off we went&nbsp;... Then he thought it would be a good idea to go to the [[Blackpool Pleasure Beach|Pleasure Beach at Blackpool]]. We found a fortune-teller's tent and Alan said he'd like to go in[,] so we waited around for him to come back&nbsp;... And this sunny, cheerful visage had shrunk into a pale, shaking, horror-stricken face. Something had happened. We don't know what the fortune-teller said but he obviously was deeply unhappy. I think that was probably the last time we saw him before we heard of his suicide.}}