Sir Robert Turing brought back a fortune from India in 1792 and revived the title. But he, and all the senior branches of the family, died off without male heirs, and by 1911 there were but three small clusters of Turings in the world. The baronetcy was held by the 84-year-old eighth baronet, who had been British Consul in Rotterdam. Then there was his brother, and his descendants, who formed a Dutch branch of Turings. The junior branch consisted of the descendants of their cousin, John Robert Turing, who was Alan's grandfather.
歌谣里的故事是这样:1972年,罗伯特·图灵爵士从印度归来,终于带回好运,恢复了爵位和领地。但是,图灵家族并没有真正复兴,因为他和家族的各大支系,都偏偏没儿子。到1911年,图灵家族只剩三个很小的分支,一位84岁的英国驻鹿特丹领事继承了爵位,带领兄弟儿孙,在荷兰形成了一个分支。还有一位约翰·罗伯特·图灵,带着他的后代,形成了另一个小分支,这位就是艾伦·图灵的祖父。
John Robert Turing took a degree in mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1848, and was placed eleventh in rank, but abandoned mathematics for ordination and a Cambridge curacy. In 1861 he married nineteen year old Fanny Boyd and left Cambridge for a living in Nottinghamshire, where he fathered ten children. Two died in infancy and the surviving four girls and four boys were brought up in a regime of respectable poverty on a clerical stipend. Soon after the birth of his youngest son, John Robert suffered a stroke and resigned his living. He died in 1883.
1848年,约翰·罗伯特·图灵以第11名的成绩,获得剑桥大学三一学院的数学学位。但他随后放弃了数学,就任圣职,当了牧师。1861年,他娶了19岁的范妮·博伊德,并离开剑桥,定居在诺丁汉郡。在那里,他们一共生了十个孩子,有两个幼年夭折,剩下的四男四女,全靠他的牧师薪水维持生计。1883年,在他最小的儿子出生后不久,约翰罹患中风,见了上帝。
As his widow was an invalid, the care of the family fell upon the eldest sister Jean, who ruled with a rod of iron. The family had moved to Bedford to take advantage of its grammar school, where the two elder boys were educated. Jean started her own school, and two of the other sisters went out as schoolteachers, and generally sacrificed themselves for the sake of advancing the boys. The eldest son, Arthur, was another Turing whom fortune did not help: he was commissioned in the Indian Army, but was ambushed and killed on the North-West Frontier in 1899. The third son Harvey2 emigrated to Canada, and took up engineering, though he was to return for the First World War and then turn to genteel journalism, becoming editor of the Salmon and Trout Magazine and fishing editor of The Field. The fourth son Alick became a solicitor. Of the daughters only Jean was to marry: her husband was Sir Herbert Trustram Eve, a Bedford estate agent who became the foremost rating surveyor of his day. The formidable Lady Eve, Alan 's Aunt Jean, became a moving spirit of the London County Council Parks Committee. Of the three unmarried aunts, kindly Sybil became a Deaconess and took the Gospel to the obstinate subjects of the Raj. And true to this Victorian story, Alan's grandmother Fanny Turing succumbed to consumption in 1902.
他的遗孀范妮身体羸弱,持家的重任落在年长而坚强的姐姐珍妮肩上。为了让家里的男孩接受良好的教育,他们举家搬到了贝德福德。珍妮办了一所学校,并让两个妹妹在里面教书,几位姑娘日夜操劳,一心为了让家里的男孩们成才。不幸的是,长子阿瑟又成了图灵家族的一位勇敢却不走运的人:他应征去印度当兵,结果在1899年西北边界战中遭到伏击,当场战死。三儿子哈维移民到加拿大,成为一名工程师,后来在第一次世界大战时回国,改行做《鲑鱼与鳟鱼》和《田地》杂志的编辑。小儿子艾里克当了律师。家中的女孩们,只有珍妮结婚了,嫁给贝德福德的一位地产商,赫伯特·特拉斯坦·伊夫爵士。另一个女孩希比尔,成为一名宗教执事,夹着一本福音书到处传教。1902年,在维多利亚时代的最后,艾伦的祖母范妮·图灵死于结核。