Talk:Christopher Morcom/GA1

GA review

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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

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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)