Genius Turing slated in his school reports

CRITICISED Alan Turing A REPORT card from Alan Turing’s school days reveals how the Second World War codebreaker exasperated some of his teachers.

Although Turing, aged nearly 17, showed “distinct promise” in maths, he was chastised for failing to put an “intelligible and legible” CAPTURED A German U-boat 1945 solution on paper. The 1929 report from the Sherborne School in Dorset is going on show for the first time today in a Codebreakers and Groundbreakers exhibition.

His physics master Henry Gervais wrote: “He has done some good work and generally sets it WAR HERO Alison in her 90s down badly. Cambridge will want sound knowledge rather than vague ideas.”

His French master added: “Most of the mistakes are elementary and the result of hasty work.”

The scathing comments reveal little of the genius of the man whose work played a crucial role in deciphering German messages.

A teaspoon from his laboratory will also be on display at Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, which his mother believes was responsible for his “accidental” death in 1952, aged 41 from cyanide poisoning.