A woman who auctioned off papers written by World War Two codebreaker Alan Turing said the documents were almost disposed of before their value was realised.
The collection, which dates from the 1930s and includes a copy of Turing’s PhD dissertation, was sold for £465,400 at auction in Etwall, Derbyshire, on Tuesday.
Bridget Pitcher, from Nottinghamshire, said the papers were discovered in an attic by a cousin at her mother’s house and included correspondence between the famous scientist and her uncle, fellow mathematician Norman Routledge.
“There were a couple of boxes and a few carrier bags and they thought about just shredding it all due to how much paper there was,” Ms Pitcher, 68, said.
She added: “We had a cousin reunion in November 2024 planned, so they kept hold of the papers and brought them along for us all to go through.
“We had a look through and my husband noticed they were Alan Turing related. I had a closer look and found a letter Alan Turing wrote to my uncle, which we knew about.
“However, we found more letters including one from Turing’s mum to my uncle. Upon further look, we noticed one of the papers had Alan Turing’s signature on, so that gave me a bit of a fizzle.
“My cousins then agreed I could take them away to investigate.”
Ms Pitcher, from Newark, said the family “didn’t know anything” about her uncle’s friendship with Turing, and had “no idea at all” how much the papers would be worth when they took them for valuation.
They were given an estimate of “anything from £50-60,000 to £150,000”, a price comfortably cleared at the eventual auction.
Ms Pitcher said she was “very pleased” to see the papers find an appreciative home.
“I’m delighted that they have gone to people who wanted them and can really appreciate them,” she said.
“The papers are pure math – it was all maths, so it didn’t mean anything to me because it was all about maths and at a level that you need to be a pretty good mathematician to understand.”
