Talk:Christopher Morcom

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Dclemens1971 (talk) 13:01, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Alan Turing had a childhood crush on Christopher Morcom?

• Source: https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/the-spirit-of-alan-turing/ "Morcom was Turing’s first love"
• Hodges page 45: "this was first love, which Alan would himself come to regard as the first of many for others of his own sex."

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Bethan's Rock
  • Comment: It has been 9 days since I published this article but as WP:DYKNEW states, "The seven-day limit can be extended for a day or two upon request." Turing is very famous and Morcom is reasonably so, so I think an extension would be a good idea.

Also, I don't know much about copyright so please be careful when reviewing the image. I did not upload it to Commons.

Moved to mainspace by Panamitsu (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 99 past nominations.

Panamitsu ✨ 06:53, 27 April 2026 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Article is new enough, long enough. Hook fact is interesting and cited. Image has issues and probably should not be used. Without knowing the photographer, we cannot ascertain the UK expiry, and without knowing first publication, we cannot ascertain US status. Copyvio tool only highlights proper nouns.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:39, 28 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm happy to have the image removed (and deleted from Commons) if necessary. Panamitsu ✨ 00:19, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

• Thanks. Signing off on this. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:50, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Stained-glass window

Information about the memorial window appears twice in the article, which confused me at first. The duplication could be reduced.--Thoughtfortheday (talk) 15:04, 13 June 2026 (UTC)

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Christopher Morcom/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Panamitsu (talk · contribs) 08:39, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: EmergentAnarchy (talk · contribs) 16:58, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

Hello folks, I'll be happy to take this on as the experienced reviewer for the ongoing GA drive. At first glance everything looks good, but let me take a closer look and I'll add any comments I have at the bottom of the review shortly. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 14:39, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

Going to get a second look from an experienced reviewer as part of the June backlog drive (this is my third review)

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear, concise and understandable to an appropriately broad audience, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   "Turing wrote, "Evidently I looked rather lonely as Chris beckoned to me (mostly I think with his eyes) to walk beside him. Chris knew I think so well how I liked him, but hated me shewing it." - Is "shewing" a typo of the wikipedia page, or original source? might need a [sic]

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   looks good

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   citations all look good

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   Spot checks below this table - I have a comment about page numbers for the clock house section

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

   Earwig checker flags up a couple of quotes in the old shirburnian, but it's highlighting the article quoting Turing.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   Can't think of anything else it would need to include

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

   no concerns about neutrality

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

   recent edits are small constructive changes

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   most are public domain because of creator death (Morcom took most of them.) the one of the memorial window is BY-SA 2.0

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Will pass once question about page numbers (Clock House section) is addressed, also if "shewing" is a typo.

• "and in the 1919 Birthday Honours was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire"

• The Clock House - "In 1909 the Morcom family began living in The Clock House" - It says they bought it then, which implies they lived there. Not sure that 70, 74 are the right pages. Demolition thing is on page 77

• "He enjoyed chess puzzles.[12] In September 1922, he was first to solve a chess puzzle in The Saturday Review, for which he chose to win a free copy of Luigi Villari's 1922 military book The Macedonian Campaign."

• Turing later became known as founder of modern computer science.

• "Morcom has been described as Turing's first love"/"Turing wrote after his death that he "worshipped the ground he trod on"/ "Morcom's death caused Turing great sorrow"

• It has been speculated that Morcom's death was the cause of Turing's atheism and materialism.

• Nonetheless, his initial reaction to the death still exhibited different beliefs. On the day of Morcom's service, Turing wrote to his own mother, "I feel sure that I shall meet Morcom again somewhere & that there will be some work for us to do together, as I believed there was for us to do here. (source 28)

• "In 1930, his family created the Christopher Morcom Science Prize at Sherborne."

• "Morcom was played by Jack Bannon in The Imitation Game, a 2014 biographical film about Turing"

• "The film's depiction of Morcom has several inaccuracies. In the film, Turing and Morcom connect over an interest in cyphers, but they actually bonded over mathematics and chemistry; it was another friend with whom Turing bonded over cyphers. In the film, Turing names a computer "Christopher" after Morcom, but this was entirely fictional"

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Thanks for the review, EmergentAnarchy! I'll respond to your comments tomorrow. Panamitsu (talk) 09:28, 21 June 2026 (UTC)

EmergentAnarchy, just added page number 77 and changed the Clock House text to "In 1909 the Morcom family bought and soon began living in The Clock House" as per your concern.

As for "shewing", I'm not quite sure what to do here. "Shew" is an archaic spelling of "show" so it isn't a typo, but I'm not sure if we should change it to "show". MOS:ARCHAIC (which coincidentally lists "shew") says that "we rarely need to provide any translations into Modern English if the source material is Elizabethan or later", although when I saw "shewing" for the first time I wasn't sure what it meant. What do you think, should I replace shewing with "[showing]"? Panamitsu (talk) 00:12, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I'd leave it, wasn't aware of the archaic variant. Though perhaps the experienced reviewer will have something to say. Looks good! EmergentAnarchy (talk) 07:53, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

DrOrinScrivello's comments

• It was demolished in 1976 but the clock tower remains. I don't know that we can say "remains" in the present tense but cited to a 2012 source. I would either try to find a more recent source or change the prose to something like "as of 2012 the clock tower remained".
• In regards to the above discussion, I have seen "shewing" used before and think it's intelligible enough to leave without a [sic].
• I happen to have access to Hodges 2012 and so performed an abbreviated spot check of that source, with no text-source integrity or CLOP issues found.
• Believe that's all from me. @EmergentAnarchy: nice job on the review, I have no suggestions or nits to pick. @Panamitsu: just the one very minor item to take a look at, otherwise this is a very well-written article. Once that's addressed we should be good to go here. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 15:54, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

  Thanks DrOrinScrivello and EmergentAnarchy, I've just added an "as of" to the statement about the clock tower, but kept it as present tense if that's ok (It was demolished in 1976 but, as of 2012, the clock tower remains.) Panamitsu (talk) 01:13, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

  No problem with that here. And with that, I'm satisfied with the article and the review, nice work to all. I'll leave it to EmergentAnarchy to see to the close, just ping me if you have any questions. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 01:24, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Just sending a friendly ping to EmergentAnarchy to let you know that this review should be good to be closed as pass if you're happy with it. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 12:45, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

I thought i'd closed it and passed everything. Do i need to do anything with this page? EmergentAnarchy (talk) 12:51, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

My apologies, I'm used to the GAN Review Tool being used which closes the discussion on this page, but I (the supposedly experienced reviewer) forget that isn't the only way to do it and didn't have the actual Christopher Morcom article watchlisted. You're good to go though, thanks! DrOrinScrivello (talk) 12:57, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

So just to check, there's nothing else I need to do here? EmergentAnarchy (talk) 13:06, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

No, nothing else needs to be done, sorry again for the confusion. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 13:07, 26 June 2026 (UTC)

Peer review

Christopher Morcom

I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to bring it up to featured article status. Morcom is noted for his relationship with Alan Turing.

I'm mostly looking for feedback on the writing, such as grammar and flow, as that's my biggest weakpoint.

Thanks, Panamitsu (talk) 08:09, 30 June 2026 (UTC)

RoySmith

I'm not sure if I'll do a full review, but one thing jumps out. Why do you think File:Christopher-Morcom-5th-form-1926-1927.jpg was published in the US? RoySmith (talk) 18:03, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

• Morcom was educated at King's Mead School in Seaford, East Sussex, from 1922 to 1925, and Sherborne School in Dorset from 1925 to 1929, where he excelled and was awarded several scholarships and prizes. I think you mean to say that he excelled at Sherborne, but this could be parsed as he excelled at both schools, so some clarification would help.
• The two bonded over mathematics and science, with examples of topics they discussed including chemistry experiments, astronomy, iodised salt, the orbits of planets and the age of stars For the lead, I think it's enough to say they bonded over math and science. You can give the more specific examples in the main text, but I'd go with the condensed version here.
• Rupert studied at ETH Zurich, in Switzerland I'm not sure what standard practice is, but my hunch is you want to spell out Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule. Check to see if any other FAs refer to this school and see what they do.
• but, as of 2012, the clock tower remains.[1] You want to use the {{as of}} template, which links this into various maintenance categories. Also, 2012 was a long time ago (well, OK, not by British history standards); folks at FAC will expect that you've researched if this is still true and can bring the as-of date forward a bit.
• Morcom conducted several scientific experiments with his brother Rupert I would rephrase this to make it clear that he was collaborating with this brother, not using his brother as an experimental subject.
• In one instance the two worked on measuring air resistance, and in another project the two worked on analysing plasticine for an artist.[9] I would give a little more detail about the experiments. One or two sentences for each is probably enough. I'll also state what plasticine is (in addition to linking); not all of our readers will be familiar with it.
• engaged in "driving" I have no clue what driving is in this context, so that needs to be explained. Also, scare-quotes are frowned upon, although I'm afraid I can't locate the exact part of WP:MOS which speaks to that. Also explain what fives is.
• In September 1922, he was first to solve a chess puzzle in The Saturday Review I think what you meant was that he was the first to solve this particular puzzle, not the first to solve a Saturday Review puzzle overall. Needs clarifying.
• for which he chose to win a free copy of Luigi Villari's It seems redundant to say it was "free" if he won it as a prize.
• Morcom had a four-inch telescope Use {{convert}} to get the metric value.
• he stated that he had seen the spectra of three stars and the Orion Nebula, and was in the process of making a spectrograph. If he didn't yet have a spectrograph, how did he see the spectra?

I'm just up to Relationship with Alan Turing. Before I start reading that section, I'll state that the big challenge in an article like this is to keep it about the main subject, not about the more famous people they knew. Let's see how that goes...

• Morcom contracted bovine tuberculosis at a young age after drinking infected cows' milk. Do we know anything more precise than "a young age".
• I personally find it difficult to get worked up over this, but I'm sure somebody at FAC will point you to WP:FALSETITLE and insist that you change things like "illustrator Norman Hirst" to be "the illustrator Norman Hirst". I am sure that somebody will further insist that including the article (i.e. "the") is mandatory in British English.

Overall, I think the writing is fine. You asked specifically about "flow", which is traditionally one of my big complaints at FAC, but I'm not seeing any issues here. I made a few copyedits; feel free to revert any of them which you don't agree with. You also asked about grammar. I'm not an expert grammarian but I didn't see anything which leapt out at me. I think having humans proofread for grammar is silly; there's plenty of excellent automated tools (some based on LLMs, some not) which do a better job than I could. Use them.

RoySmith (talk) 19:39, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

PS, I asked Claude to see if you missed anything. There's a bunch of stuff in the output which isn't in the article. Of course, nothing an LLM says should be trusted, but it's good as a jumping-off point for additional research. Claude pointed me to this document which is probably not a WP:RS itself, but likewise should give you some ideas for additional searching. I suspect the mezzotint portrait on page 1 is Public Domain by now; if that could be verified, it would make an excellent addition to the article. It also mentions that he was good at sports, won the Digby Prize and a National Science Scholarship, etc. Again, I wouldn't trust this document verbatim, but these are all useful things to add if they can be verified against a WP:RS. RoySmith (talk) 21:00, 1 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, I've used most of the suggestions but haven't got around to a few others yet.

I also don't know what driving means. The source unfortunately doesn't explain it.

The mezzotint portrait was made by Norman Hirst, who died in 1956 according to Wikidata, which was 70 years ago. I can't find the exact death date so I'm not sure if it's in the public domain in the UK yet, but it does look like it would be before the end of the year. Panamitsu (talk) 07:09, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

RoySmith sorry for the ping, but I'm not sure what to do about Commons:File:Christopher-Morcom-5th-form-1926-1927.jpg. You asked above "Why do you think [the image] was published in the US?. I've been told by separate people that it is not in the public domain and that it is in the public domain so I'm quite confused. Do you think it is in the public domain or not? I once removed it from the article because of copyright concerns but Evedawn99 ended up re-adding it. Panamitsu (talk) 08:34, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria could you lend some assistance here? The tag says This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1931. After reading that several times, I confess I'm not sure what it means. It doesn't explicitly say it has to be published in the US, but I assume that's what it's intended to cover. The photo is from an English school yearbook, so it's pretty obvious it was published in England, not the US. So how does this actually work? RoySmith (talk) 11:28, 19 July 2026 (UTC)

I'd recommend the Hirtle chart as a reference - basically in the vast majority of cases, if it was published pre-1931, it's PD in the US. However, that relies on publication, not just creation. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:48, 20 July 2026 (UTC)

Nikkimaria sorry for the ping, but I'm still a bit confused. Do you know of some notice board that I can post on so that people can review the copyright status of this image? It was created in England in 1927 but I'm not aware of it ever being published in the US. Panamitsu (talk) 05:02, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

WP:MCQ. To elaborate, though, in most cases publication anywhere before 1931 means it's PD in the US. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:41, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! Panamitsu (talk) 00:14, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Video

Hi Evedawn99 I see you've added some text about potential footage that Morcom may have appeared in or contributed to. Do you have a source that mentions Morcom by name to back up these claims? That would be needed to comply with Wikipedia's no original research policy. Panamitsu (talk) 22:28, 20 July 2026 (UTC)