The Bank of England revealed last year the new £50 note design would feature Alan Turing.
The note entered into circulation in June, honouring a man who helped turn the tide of World War II and defeat the Nazis.
Alan Turing, originally from London, was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science and is now widely considered to be the father of IT and artificial intelligence.
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Born in 1912, Alan was the youngest of two brothers and reportedly showed signs of the genius he was later to display prominently.
While at primary school, the headmistress recognised his talent noting that she had seen “clever boys and hardworking boys, but Alan is a genius.” However, the same respect was not found when Alan attended secondary school.
His natural inclination towards mathematics and science was dismissed by the teachers, whose definition of education placed more emphasis on the classics such as literature and history.
Around the same time Alan formed an incredible bond with a fellow pupil, Christopher, who has since been described as his first love. The relationship was cut short as Christopher died from complications of bovine tuberculosis which he contracted after drinking infected cow’s milk some years previously.
The event caused Alan great sorrow with some saying it caused him to turn to atheism and materialism. Regardless, instead of grieving, Alan worked much harder on the topics he and Christopher shared a common interest in and later attended the prestigious Princeton University to study mathematical logic.
When he returned from America, Alan took a part time job with the Government Code and Cypher School, a British code-breaking organisation at Bletchley Park.
Alan went on to be a leading participant in wartime code-breaking, particularly that of German ciphers. He made five major advances in the field of cryptanalysis during WWII, including specifying the bombe, an electromechanical device used to help decipher German Enigma encrypted signals.
Besides this, Alan also impressively played a pivotal role in the development of early computers first at the National Physical Laboratory and later at the University of Manchester.
In 1952, when homosexuality was still illegal, Alan found himself in trouble with police after admitting to having a sexual relationship with a 19-year-old.
He was charged with gross indecency and forced to choose between temporary probation, on the condition he would receive hormonal treatment that would reduce sexual desire, or imprisonment.
Choosing the former, Alan underwent chemical castration through injections for a year which eventually rendered him powerless.
As a result of his conviction, Turing's security clearance was removed and he was barred from continuing his work with cryptography.
Alan died in 1954 just over an hours drive away from Liverpool in Wilmslow, Cheshire. Following a postmortem exam, it was determined his cause of death was cyanide poisoning.
The Queen granted the pioneer a posthumous royal pardon in 2013 for his convictions related to homosexuality. Five years later, it was decided Alan’s life would be celebrated on the £50 note.
After receiving a total of 227,299 potential nominations, the Bank of England chose to recognise Alan Turing’s contribution to the field of science by using his face on newly minted £50 notes when they entered circulation.
Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, at the time 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.”
The note includes a photo of Alan taken in 1951, a table and mathematical formulae taken from one of his seminal papers, technical drawings for the British Bombe, the machine specified by Turing and one of the primary tools used to break Enigma-enciphered messages during WWII as well as his signature.
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