Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin was uncompromising with strong opinions and no fear of sharing them. But she also loved to have fun, spending time with friends at small dinners in the evenings or going on hikes or bike rides through the mountains on weekends. Friends said she liked to tease and had a mischievous wit.

Born in 1920 in London into a wealthy banking family, as a child, she hated dolls, hated pretend games. She was logical and literal, always seeking facts and reasons.

But as the only daughter amongst three brothers for the first ten years of her life, she also wanted to be considered tough. She’d ignore pain and illness and once even walked blocks to a hospital with a needle stuck in her knee.

As a teenager, Rosalind fell in love with science - chemistry and physics in particular. At fifteen, she decided to become a scientist. She set her sights on attending Cambridge University, where she gained admission. But her father, who didn’t believe in a university education for women, refused to pay for her to attend. An aunt, the sister of Rosalind’s father, volunteered to pay for Rosalind, as did Rosalind’s mother. With three women now against his decision, Rosalind’s father agreed to pay.

After college, Rosalind worked at the British Coal Utilization Research Association in South London. This was during WWII, so she’d ride her bike through bomb raids to get to work. While scared, she never complained.

Her commitment to work pushed Rosalind through her fears. And it was in her work that she found much success. She published five papers, which are still cited today, and dozens of articles. Her research changed the way scientists understood coal and similar structures. And her work earned Rosalind a Ph.D. She was 26 years old and already an expert in her field.

In this work, Rosalind also learned she needed to understand X-ray technology to understand better physical matter, the matter from which the universe is made of. She studied, became an expert, and because of her expertise, was offered a position at Cambridge to help analyze X-ray photographs of DNA molecules.

Focusing on determining the molecular structure of DNA, she took X-ray photographs that were considered the most beautiful of the time. And just as in her previous roles, she made critical discoveries, including the double helix structure. Her work helped build an understanding of DNA.

But because of gender issues of the time, Rosalind received little credit for her work. The research she helped shape would earn several men a Nobel Prize, and they did little to credit her for her valuable research.

Rosalind dedicated her life to science. She never married, and even her love of children was set aside for science, as she couldn’t imagine her children being raised by nannies while she worked.

At 37 years old, Rosalind passed away from ovarian cancer.

—

Sources: Nobel Prize women in science: their lives, struggles, and momentous discoveries by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne / Photograph of Rosalind Franklin taken in 1955, From the personal collection of Jenifer Glynn, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (no changes made) - https://commons.wikimedia.org/.../File:Rosalind_Franklin.jpg