- Whitworth Gardens
on the others. The land was purchased by the Manchester corporation in 1900 and laid out with walks, lawns and flower beds.
Turing memorial
The park contains the
Alan Turing memorial statue, which depicts the "father of modern computing" sitting on a bench at a central position in the park. The park was chosen because, to Turing's left is theUniversity of Manchester , where he worked, and to his right isCanal Street, Manchester where he spent most of his evenings in the gay bars. see cite news | last = | first = | title = Sci/Tech Computer's inventor snubbed by industry | pages = | publisher = BBC| date =1999-04-28 | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/330376.stm | accessdate = 2007-02-07 ]The statue was unveiled on 23 June, Turing's birthday, in 2001. It was conceived by Richard Humphry, a barrister from Stockport, who set up the Alan Turing Memorial Fund in order to raise the necessary funds. Humphry had come up with the idea of a statue after seeing
Hugh Whitmore 's play "Breaking The Code" starring the actor Sir Derek Jacobi, who Jacobi became the patron of the fund. Glyn Hughes, an industrial sculptor from Adlington near Westhoughton, was commissioned to sculpt the statue. The Fund eventually raised around £15,000, which was far short of the £50,000 needed to have the statue cast in Britain; not one major computer company donated a penny to the fund, which was, according to the sculptor, because Turing was not American. The statue was cast inChina .Turing is shown holding an apple - a symbol classically used to represent forbidden love, as well as being the fruit of the tree of knowledge, the object that inspired
Isaac Newton 's theory of gravitation and the means of Turing’s own death. The cast bronze bench carries in relief the text 'Alan Mathison Turing 1912-1954', and the motto 'Founder of Computer Science' as it would appear if encoded by anEnigma machine ; 'IEKYF ROMSI ADXUO KVKZC GUBJ'.A plinth at the statue’s feet says ‘Father of computer science, mathematician, logician, wartime codebreaker, victim of prejudice’. There is also a
Bertrand Russell quotation saying ‘Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.’ It is said that, buried under the plinth, is an oldAmstrad computerFact|date=February 2007.Beacon of Hope
The park also contains the "Beacon of Hope", which is the UK’s only permanent memorial for people who have, or have suffered from,
HIV /AIDS .The sculpture, a decorated steel column designd by Warren Chapman and Jess Boyn-Daniel, was erected in the year 2000.
On
World AIDS Day a candlelight vigil generally takes place at the Beacon. For several years previously, the vigil, the traditional closing event of the Manchester Pride LBGT celebration weekend, had been held at the city's Castlefield Arena, but because of the siting of the beacon, it was decided that the vigil should return to the gardens. Following a highly successful event in 2002, organised by the Village Business Association, George House Trust took control of the vigil for Europride in 2003, in collaboration with Manchester City Council and local HIV/AIDS groups such as the Body Positive North West, the Lesbian and Gay Foundation and the Black Health Agency. George House Trust now run the vigil annually at Manchester Pride.Gallery
External links
* [http://www.manchester.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=1514 Manchester City Council's Leisure Department's page for the park]
* [http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/sculpture/turing.htm Glyn Hughes' page on the Turing memorial sculpture]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/330376.stm Sci/Tech Computer's inventor snubbed by industry] (BBC News story)References
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