Canmore, the national record of Scotland's built heritage, holds Foveran Castle in Aberdeenshire under site number NJ92SE 3, and notes a second, older structure that stood beside it: Turing's Tower. Both are gone. A survey quoted in the record from 1866 reports "There is no vestige remaining of the Castle of Foveran, nor of Turing's Tower which is still more ancient and which seems to have stood nearby," and Ordnance Survey visits in 1964 and 1998 found nothing at all.
An old rhyme attached to Thomas the Rhymer ties the tower's fall to a battle: "When Turing's Tower falls to the land / Gladsmuir shall be near at hand." The castle is generally said to have collapsed around 1720, and Gladsmuir is another name for the field at Prestonpans, where the Jacobite army won in 1745. Prophecies that fit this neatly are usually recorded after the event, and this one should be read as tradition rather than foresight. Our account of the Battle of Prestonpans covers what actually happened at Gladsmuir.
What matters for the surname is simpler. A tower in Aberdeenshire carried this name long enough for a rhyme to be built around it, and the family that held it is the family the mathematician came from.
Who Were the Turings of Foveran?
Landholders in the Formartine district of Aberdeenshire, a few miles southeast of Ellon, for roughly three hundred years. The family traces to Sir William Turing, a supporter of David II, who reigned from 1329 to 1371. John Turing of Foveran was created a baronet in 1638, under Charles I, for service to the crown; some family accounts give 1639, and the two dates sit side by side in the literature. His grandson Sir John Turing, the second Baronet, sold the estate and died unmarried in 1682, and the castle site passed to the Forbeses of Tolquhon around 1750, thirty years after the tower came down.
Foveran sits in the country covered by our histories of the Leasks and Clan Buchan, both within a short ride of the same coast.
Where Does the Name Turing Come From?
From a place in Angus, on the family's own account, and that account is a memoir rather than a charter.
The fullest published version is in Sara Turing's biography of her son, issued by Cambridge University Press. It describes the family as of Norman stock with records reaching back to 1316, settled first in Angus and moving to Aberdeenshire early in the fourteenth century, where they came into possession of Foveran. It gives the spellings as Turyne, Thuring, Turin and Turing, the final g settling after William Turin was knighted by James VI. Pedigrees of the baronetcy say the same more briefly: originally French, settled in a barony called Turin, or Tourin, in Forfarshire, the old name for Angus.
So the most plausible reading is a territorial surname taken from land in Angus, on the ordinary Norman pattern set out in our survey of Norman-descended Scottish families and visible in Angus neighbors such as the Maules. It is a family tradition set down in print, not a charter this article has read, and it should be held at that weight.
A Dutch origin is sometimes suggested, and nothing found here supports it. The family's Netherlands connection is later and commercial: Sara Turing places one of Alan's forebears in a shipping concern at Batavia, in the Dutch East Indies, in the early nineteenth century. That is a trading link two centuries after the surname was fixed, not an etymology. Neither Oxford surname dictionary carries Turing as a headword at all, which is what you would expect of a name this scarce.
How Rare Is the Name in Scotland?
Vanishingly. The 1901 Scottish census surname index returns no entry for Turing at all, and Geneanet records only 2,091 individuals of the name across all its databases, all countries, from 1600 onward.
A surname carried by one landed family, sold out of its estate in 1682 and scattered afterward, leaves no broad footprint. That is the ordinary fate of a small territorial name, and it is why Turing is famous through one man rather than through numbers.
How Does Alan Turing Connect to the Foveran Line?
Directly, through the junior branch, and checkable at both ends. The descent recorded for the baronetcy runs from Sir John Turing, first Baronet, who died in 1652, through his son Henry Turing of Savock and Henry's son John, born 1650, to Sir John Turing, third Baronet (1680 to 1733), minister of Drumblade, and Sir Alexander Turing, fourth Baronet, minister of Oyne, who died in 1782. Two Aberdeenshire parish ministers holding a baronetcy is a very Scottish detail. From there the line runs through Robert Turing, a surgeon at Fort St George in Madras, and John Robert Turing, who died in 1828, to the Reverend John Robert Turing and then to Julius Mathison Turing, born 1873, of the Indian Civil Service: Alan's father.
The confirming fact sits at the other end. Alan Turing's elder brother John was the father of Sir Dermot Turing, the twelfth Baronet of Foveran. Alan was the twelfth Baronet's uncle. Whatever weight you give the medieval part of the pedigree, the modern connection between the mathematician and the Aberdeenshire baronetcy is a matter of record.
He belongs, then, beside the Scottish scientific names in our pieces on John Napier and logarithms and the Scots who built modern industry, with the qualification that he was himself born and raised in England.
What Did Alan Turing Do?
He was born at Maida Vale in London on 23 June 1912 and is generally regarded as the founder of computer science. At Bletchley Park during the Second World War he led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis, and developed the bombe, the machine used to find Enigma settings. The war's appointed historian Harry Hinsley estimated that Bletchley's work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years. Turing's theoretical work on computable numbers, and later on machine intelligence, set the terms in which computing is still discussed.
What Happened to Him in 1952?
He was prosecuted for being homosexual, and the facts are best stated plainly. Turing was convicted on 31 March 1952 of gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, the law then used against homosexual men in Britain. In place of prison he accepted a year of hormone injections, a chemical castration. He lost his security clearance and the government work that went with it.
He died at his house in Wilmslow on 7 June 1954 of cyanide poisoning. The inquest recorded suicide, though the evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning, and both readings remain in circulation.
In 2009 the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said of the prosecution that "his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are." On 24 December 2013 Queen Elizabeth II signed a pardon for the conviction. The 2017 legislation known informally as the Alan Turing law extended pardons to men cautioned or convicted under the same historical laws in England and Wales.
None of that undoes anything. It is included because a surname history that skipped it would be dishonest, and because the man's own family and country have since said so on the record.
How Should a Turing Line Be Traced?
- Search Turing, Turin, Turyne, Thuring and Tureing together, and expect Turin especially in earlier documents.
- Work Aberdeenshire first: the parishes of Foveran and Ellon for the estate years, and Drumblade and Oyne for the eighteenth-century ministers. Angus is the second field, for the Turin barony the family claimed.
- Use estate, sasine and testamentary records rather than parish registers alone. A landed family of this size leaves its traces in property papers.
- Begin from a post-1855 statutory certificate and work back, using our note on civil registration and our guide to ScotlandsPeople.
- Do not assume a connection to the baronetcy. With a name this rare it is a fair first hypothesis, but it needs proving generation by generation, and our guide to what Scottish surnames mean explains why rarity is a lead rather than a proof.
Own a Piece of Turing Heritage
Foveran lost both its castle and the older tower that carried this name, and by 1998 surveyors could find nothing of either on the ground. Three pieces carry it: a garden flag, a mug and a Turing keepsake ornament in a silver frame, family crest over a tartan background. This is a landed surname rather than a chiefly one, and no pattern has ever been given to it, so the cloth behind these crests is a design decision; our explainer on what tartan convention permits walks through the customs.
Turing Surname Crest Ornament in a Silver Frame
Frequently Asked Questions About the Turing Name
Was Alan Turing Scottish?
He was born in London in 1912 and lived in England. The surname is Scottish: his family descended from the Turings of Foveran in Aberdeenshire, and his nephew Sir Dermot Turing holds that baronetcy today.
Where does the surname Turing come from?
On the family's own published account, from a barony called Turin, or Tourin, in Angus, carried north to Aberdeenshire in the fourteenth century. That is family tradition recorded in print rather than a charter: the most plausible reading rather than a settled one. No standard surname dictionary carries an entry for the name.
Is Turing a Dutch name?
Nothing found here supports a Dutch origin for the surname. The family's Netherlands link is a later trading connection, with one nineteenth-century forebear placed in a shipping concern at Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.
Is there a Clan Turing?
No. Turing is an old landed family name that carries a baronetcy created in 1638, not a clan with a chief, and there is no tartan assigned to it.
What was Turing's Tower?
A structure at Foveran in Aberdeenshire, described in the Canmore record as older than Foveran Castle and standing nearby. It is generally said to have collapsed around 1720, and nothing of either building survives above ground.
Sources and Further Reading
- Canmore: Foveran Castle, site NJ92SE 3 — the parish of Foveran, the classification, the 1866 note on Turing's Tower and the negative Ordnance Survey visits of 1964 and 1998.
- Foveran Castle — the location southeast of Ellon, the Turing ownership, the collapse around 1720, the Forbes purchase about 1750, and the Gladsmuir rhyme.
- Turing baronets — the creation of 1638 for John Turing of Foveran, descent from Sir William Turing under David II, and Alan Turing as uncle of the twelfth Baronet.
- Sara Turing, Alan M. Turing, family background chapter (Cambridge University Press excerpt) — the Norman account, records to 1316, the move from Angus to Aberdeenshire, the Turyne, Thuring, Turin and Turing spellings, and the Batavia connection.
- Descent from Sir John Turing to Alan Mathison Turing — the generation-by-generation line, including the ministers of Drumblade and Oyne and the surgeon at Fort St George.
- Alan Turing — birth and death, Hut 8 and the bombe, Hinsley's estimate, the 1952 conviction and sentence, the 1954 inquest, the 2009 apology, the 2013 pardon and the 2017 law.
- Turing in the 1901 Scottish census index — the surname is not found.
- Geneanet: Turing — 2,091 individuals recorded, and no surname-dictionary headword for the name.
- ScotlandsPeople — National Records of Scotland registers, sasines, wills and census images for Foveran, Ellon, Drumblade and Oyne.
The Angus origin rests on a family memoir rather than a charter and should be held at that weight; the connection between the mathematician and the Aberdeenshire baronetcy, by contrast, is a matter of record. Turing pieces are here.