Rosalind Franklin

by Brenda Maddox

  ‘rat liver nucleoprotein’: Mary L. Petermann to RF, 28 Nov. 1956, JNC.

  ‘The models, he said’: R.W. Moulder to RF, 7 Oct. 1957, JNC.

  NINETEEN Clarity and Perfection

  ‘cobalt therapy’: begun 15 May 1957, ended 14 Jun. 1957, radiotherapy record, UCH Case No. AD 1651. Observations on’: Robley Williams, Friday evening discourse, Royal Institution, 14 Jun. 1957. There is absolutely’: FHCC to RF, 23 May 1957, ASA.

  ‘ One so easily’: MP to RF, postscript to previous letter.

  ‘preliminarily’: J. Palmer Saunders to RF, 9 Jul. 1957, JNC.

  ‘pelvic mass’: second opinion, entry for 4 Jul. 1957, radiotherapy record and medical history, UCH Case No. AD 1651.

  ‘did not have the strength’: author’s interview with DC.

  ‘glorious weekend in Zermatt’: RF to AS, 8 Oct. 1957, ASA.

  ‘This was my first’: ibid.

  ‘Luzzati’s mother’: VL to author, 20 Sep. 2001.

  ‘In view of the extremely small’: JDB to J.F. Lockwood, 4 Jul. 1957.

  ‘You’ll never guess’: M. Franklin, op. cit., p. 17; Glynn, op. cit., p. 281.

  ‘I am myself quite sure’: Prof. E.T.C. Spooner to JDB, 10 Oct. 1957, ARC.

  ‘From Oct. 57’ RF curriculum vitae, FRNK, CAC.

  ‘her stomach had swelled’: author’s interview with A. Piper, 13 Jan. 1999.

  ‘chemotherapy’: the Royal Marsden Hospital archives are not available.

  ‘She had seen a parcel’: GCD to AS, 9 Jun. 1976, ASA.

  ‘Why are you going’: author’s interview with Nina Franklin, 12 Apr. 1999.

  ‘my old Nurse’: will of Rosalind E. Franklin, Central Probate Registry.

  ‘What does Aaron need?’: author’s interview with Dan Jacobson.

  ‘not that ill’: JG to author, 20 Apr. 2001.

  ‘parasseuse’: RF to VL, 12 Feb. 1958, JNC.

  ‘If you feel you want’: WLB to MP, 12 Apr. 1958, JNC.

  ‘waiting for some neutral glass’: AK to Dr Taverne, 22 Apr. JNC.

  ‘Still fighting’: AK and RF to JDB, 18 Feb. 1958, Cruickshank archive.

  ‘lack of heavy atoms derivating’: AK to DC, 8 May 1958, JNC.

  ‘most of the winter . . . over together’: RF to DC, 16 Mar. 1958, JNC.

  ‘Perutz came personally’: interview with I. Hargittai, Chemical Intelligencer, Oct. 2000, p. 29.

  ‘crawl up’: AS to GCD, 23 Jun. 1976, ASA.

  ‘five pages’: RF scientific papers, notes for 28 Mar. 1958, JNC.

  ‘when both she and I knew’: GCD to AS, 31 May 1977, ASA.

  ‘There is no doubt’: ibid.

  ‘with defiance’: AS interview with Jacques Mering, 28 May 1970, ASA.

  ‘He suspected’: ibid.

  ‘There she is’: GCD to AS, 9 Jun. 1976.

  ‘a brief flicker’: [initial illegible] Haddow to JDB, 21 Apr. 1958, FRNK 2/31, CAC.

  ‘She imagined’: M. Franklin, op. cit., p. 15.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve come’: GCD to AS, 9 Jun. 1976, ASA. Special Correspondent, ‘Atomic Crystal Gazing in Brussels, Glamour of British Tradition’, The Times, 15 Apr. 1958, p. 9.

  ‘A Research Scientist’: Rosalind E. Franklin, death certificate.

  ‘His senses’: W.B. Yeats, ‘Ego Dominus Tuus’, Collected Poems, p. 367.

  ‘Rosalind Franklin, Virus Researcher’: New York Times, 20 Apr. 1958.

  ‘Rosalind Franklin’s early and tragic death’: J.D. Bernal, ‘Obituary: Dr Rosalind Franklin’, The Times, 19 Apr. 1958.

  ‘As a scientist’: J.D. Bernal, ‘Obituary: Rosalind Franklin’, Nature.

  ‘She was very modest’: Alice Franklin to AS, 24 Apr. 1958, ASA.

  ‘Rosalind was always good’: author’s interview with AK, 6 Jul. 1999.

  EPILOGUE Life After Death

  ‘Concerning Rosalind’: MW to JDW, 25 Jul. 1966, JNC.

  ‘dowdier’: Watson’s phrase in The Double Helix is ‘at the age of thirty-one her dresses showed the imagination of English bluestocking adolescent’.

  ‘required the written consent’: JDW to MP, 27 Sep. 1966, JNC.

  ‘Francis Crick and Wilkins’: JDW to MP, 26 Sep. 1966, JNC.

  ‘In a fierce letter’: LP to FHCC, 25 Apr. 1967, JNC.

  ‘a rather hysterical reaction’: Sayre, op. cit., p. 219.

  ‘I was furious’: M. Perutz, ‘How the secret of life itself was discovered’.

  ‘unfair to me’: MW to T.J. Wilson, 4 May 1967, JNC. Wilkins’s handwritten notes on an early version of Watson’s The Double Helix shows that he tried to amend Watson’s disparagement of her attractiveness, writing in the margin, ‘often held that she was a very handsome girl’, King’s College London Archive. In retrospect, Wilkins acknowledges that there was more depth to Watson’s book than he recognised at the time, and that the personal interactions of scientists merit recording.

  ‘Harvard’s Board’: Watson, op. cit., p. xxii.

  ‘I would rather’: Dr June Goodfield, film proposal, ‘Rosalind’, quotes AK hearing this from MF.

  ‘Professor Watson’s Memoirs’, Nature, 217, 23 Mar. 1968.

  ‘communicates the spirit’: G. Stent, ‘A Review of the Reviews’, in Watson, op. cit., p. 167.

  ‘a decisive breakthrough’: J.D. Bernal, ‘The Material Theory of Life’, p. 325.

  ‘lines such as’: J.D. Watson, The Double Helix, pp. 14, 15, 45.

  ‘the scientist as human being’: Mary Ellmann, in The Double Helix, from Yale Review, 57 (Summer 1968), pp. 631-5.

  ‘Elizabeth Janeway attacked’: E. Janeway, Man’s World, Woman’s Place, p. III.

  ‘had been exacerbated’: C. Pert, Molecules of Emotion, p. III.

  ‘Base Pairs’: Watson says he meant this interim title to be ironic, a riposte to Crick for disliking ‘Honest Jim’, JDW to author, Jan. 2002.

  ‘quite horribly well done’: ‘Lucky Jim’, New Statesman, 29 Nov. 1999, reprint of 1954 review, p. 62.

  ‘Let’s just start’: JDW speech at Harvard, 30 Sep. 1999.

  ‘never telling her’: Crick says he doesn’t recall ever actually telling Rosalind how crucial her work was to their discovery because he thought it was obvious (FHCC to author, 17 Dec. 2001). JDW in conversation with author acknowledged that with hindsight not telling her was a mistake, but once they had made the discovery, the model proclaimed its own meaning and it was clear that they hadn’t needed her data. Working out the function of the base pairs was the essential step.

  ‘public platforms’: see below: Watson in person and Crick on video. At the dedication of the Franklin-Wilkins Building, King’s College London, 22 Mar. 2000, Crick’s words were, ‘We could never have proposed the model but for what they [Wilkins and Franklin] told us of their results.’

  ‘the real tragedy ‘ : David Harker, in R. Hubbard, ‘The Story of DNA’, Marjorie Senechal (ed.), Structures of Matter and Patterns in Science. Also, author’s interview with David Sayre, I Oct. 1999. Also, Robert Sinsheimer, ‘The Double Helix’, review in Science and Engineering, Sep. 1968, p. 6, reprinted in The Double Helix, pp. 191-4.

  ‘Penniless Heinz’: Stent, op. cit., p. 161. See also Sayre, op. cit., p. 194: ‘Was this why ‘‘Rosy’’ was invented? To rationalise, justify, excuse, and even to ‘‘sell’’ that which was done that ought not really to have been done?’

  ‘Well dear’: C. Franklin, op. cit.

  ‘Jim’s novel’: author’s interview with MW, 22 Mar. 1999.

  ‘quite witty’: author’s conversation with RG.

  ‘Rosalind’s final, brilliant work’: M. M’Ewen to HFJ, 15 Sep. 1976.

  ‘Rosalind’s difficulties’: F.H.C. Crick, ‘How to Live with a Golden Helix’, in The Sciences, Sep. 1979, p. 7.

  ‘The major opposition’: ibid.

  ‘analytical mind’: AS interview with FHCC, 16 Jun. 1970. ASA.

  ‘today would bring down the wrath’: author’s interview with KCH, 24 Jan. 2000.

  ‘Ashkenazi gene�
�: see for example U. Beller et al., ‘High frequency of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in Ashkenazi Jewish ovarian cancer patients, regardless of family history’, Gynecol. Oncol, 67, 126-6 (1997); also E. Levy-Lahad et al., ‘Founder BRCAi and BRCA2 mutations in Ashkenazi Jews in Israel, frequency and differential penetrance in ovarian cancer and in breast-ovarian cancer families’, American Journal of Human Genetics, 60, 1059-67 (1997).

  ‘This entailed’ : Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters, p. 26.

  ‘memorial fund’: AK to DC, 2 May 1958; DC to AK, 5 May 1958, JNC. Also JG to author.

  ‘So you were in love’: RG to author, 19 Oct. 1999.

  ‘The circumstances of her death’: KCH to AS, 22 Apr. 1971, ASA. He expressed the same feelings in interviews with author, 24 Jan. 2000 and 26 Nov. 2001.

  ‘nun-like’: AK lecture on RF at RS, 18 Mar. 1999.

  ‘droopy drudge’: AS to Christopher Salazar, 16 Feb. 1993, ASA.

  ‘is of a brilliant’: Jon Bate and Hilary Gaskin, ‘Unsung Pioneer’, New Statesman, 8 Jul. 1983.

  ‘Franklin never received’: ‘Fame at Last’, in The Times, 10 Feb. 1992.

  ‘In the spirit of righting old wrongs’: in Mar. 2000 Wilkins wrote to Bruce Fraser in Australia and apologised for having failed to insist in 1953 that Fraser’s note that he, Wilkins, had solicited on 17 Mar. 1953, his three-chain model of DNA, was not published in 1953 along with the Watson-Crick-Wilkins, Wilson, Franklin-Gosling papers in Nature.

  ‘Waarom kreeg’: ‘Why did Rosy not get the Nobel Prize?’, Vrij Nederland, 15 Aug. 1998.

  ‘great joy’ and subsequent quotes: WLB to MP, 22 Nov. 1962, JNC.

  ‘Bragg wouldn’t have’: WLB to Erik Hulthen, chairman, the Nobel committee for Physics, 9 Jan. 1960, JNC.

  ‘embarrassed’: Ferry, op. cit., p. 289, citing M. Perutz, ‘Forty years of friendship with Dorothy’, in G. Dodson, J. Glusker and D. Sayre, Crystal Structure Analysis: A Primer, OUP.

  ‘I have always felt’: JTR to RG, 29 Aug. 1972, CAC.

  ‘Had her life’: A. Klug, Les Prix Nobel en 1982: Stockholm, pp. 94-5.

  ‘She would have solved it’: A. Klug, ‘Rosalind Franklin and the Discovery of the Structure of DNA’; reprinted in Watson, The Double Helix, p. 154.

  ‘debt of honour’: In 2000, A. Klug also enjoyed considerable financial gain from the sale of his papers, which included some of Rosalind’s notebooks, papers and letters, to the JNC.

  ‘the world’s most coveted intellectual award’: see ‘Kofi Annan, Nobel Laureate’, letter to the editor of the New York Times by Ware G. Kuschner, assistant professor of medicine, Stanford University, 16 Oct. 2001.

  ‘Avery should have gotten’: author’s interview with E. Chargaff, 18 Apr. 1999.

  ‘collective enterprise’: John Maddox, ‘Science has changed and so must the Nobel Prize’, Independent, 11 Oct. 2000

  INDEX

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  Aachen 222

  Acta Crystallographica 131, 220; Cochran-Crick-Vand paper on helices 171; Franklin-Holmes paper on TMV 296; RF’s carbon papers 105 ,110, 145; RF’s DNA papers 184, 187, 195, 199, 222, 223

  Agricultural Research Council 235, 251, 253, 262–6, 270, 272, 290–2

  Altmann, Bocha 137–8, 140

  Altmann, Simon 137–8, 140, 172, 267, 343n

  Altmark 58

  American Association for the Advancement of Science 233

  Amis, Kingsley 315

  Anderson, Sir John 42

  Anglo-Jewish Association 5, 15

  Angstrom, Anders J. 56

  Asquith, H.H. 7, 8

  Association of Scientific Workers 47

  Astbury, William: DNA model 120–1, 136, 143, 153, 162; International X-ray Tables 175; at Leeds 141; X-ray diffraction patterns 200

  Attlee, Clement 82 Austria 38, 40

  Avery, Oswald 120–2, 123, 136, 152, 327

  Ayrton, Hertha 83

  Balfour Declaration 7, 8

  Baltimore 273, 274

  Bangham, Dr D.H. 78, 83

  Bawden, Frederick 250–1, 263, 268

  Bayley, Stan 166

  Beauvoir, Simone de 90, 101

  Bedford College 145

  Beevers, Arnold: Beevers-Lipson strips 169, 222

  Bell, Jocelyn 325, 327

  Bell Telephone Laboratories 109

  Belloc, Hilaire 10

  Bentwich, Helen ‘Mamie’ (nee Franklin, RF’s aunt) 226; on anti-semitism II-12, in local government 40, 113, 271; as rebel 29; refugee relief work 38–9; and RF 14–15, 71, 75, 140; schooldays 25, 32

  Bentwich, Norman II, 72, 81

  Berkeley, Virus Laboratory 233, 246, 266, 279–80, 281–2, 285

  Bermant, Chaim 320

  Bernal, John Desmond 92, 229, 243, 321; admiration for RF xx, 153, 217, 257, 265, 290, 308, 313; appearance 220; author of RF’s obituaries 308–9; background 218-19, 229; at Birkbeck xx, 105, 219–21, 249, 264, 272; fame 220; honours 219; omniscience 218; and Pirie 263; politics 173, 219–21, 231, 235, 289; relations with RF 221; relations with women 220, 255–6; reviews The Double Helix 313; RF’s application to join 168, 172, 173, 179, 183; Stockholm conference paper 148, 161, 169; war work 72, 218–19; work on space groups 56; work on TMV 229–30; X-ray crystallography 120, 148

  Bexhill 21–2

  Biochemistry of Nucleic Acids (Davidson) 201

  Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 253, 269, 292

  Birkbeck College, London xix, xx, 100; Biomolecular Research Laboratory 219; crystallography department 219; equipment shortages 229, 253, 265, 266, 281; history of 217; nucleic acid research 136; politics in 257; Research Grants Committee 304; RF applies to work at 104—5, 168, 172, 183, 205; RF joins 217; RF’s relations with colleagues 256—7; RF’s Virus Research Project 254—7, 262, 263, 265, 267, 269, 290, 293, 296, 304–5, 309, 324; science buildings 217—18; staff opposition to polio research 298; virus research 217, 218, 219, 222, 229; X-ray machine developed by 114, 130

  Board of Deputies of British Jews 50

  Boedtker, Helga 274

  Boot, H.A.H. 131, 132

  Boston, Mass. 238, 239—41, 273

  Bradley, John 126

  Bragg, Stephen 47—8

  Bragg, William Henry 47, 88

  Bragg, William Lawrence 47, 56, 69, 75, 131; admiration of RF 275, 293; bans DNA research at Cavendish 165, 177, 182, 186; Bragg’s Law 47; and Crick and Watson 159—60, 165, 182, 197, 207; and Pauling 148, 191, 197; at Royal Institution 275, 293, 303; on Wilkins’s Nobel prize 323—4

  Braunschweig, Suzanne 66

  Brenner, Sydney 241, 246

  Breslau 3, 6, 19

  Brimble, L. Jack 209, 210

  British Coal Utilisation Research Association (BCURA) 78, 82, 83, 87, 104

  British Union of Fascists 38

  Brittany 150

  Bronowski, Jacob 313

  Brown, Angela 150, 192, 209

  Brown, Geoffrey 144, 150, 173—4, 209

  Brussels World’s Fair 275, 293—4, 300, 307, 309, 322

  Buchan, John 10

  Cadogan, John 174, 194

  California Institute of Technology (Caltech) 147, 151, 186, 190, 234, 241, 246, 277

  Calvi, Corsica 102

  Cambridge 55, 182

  Cambridge University 39, 41, 42, 60, 82, 258; Amateur Dramatic Club 51; Archimedeans 47; Jewish Society 45; Physical Chemistry Laboratory 70; science in 46, 48; Union 45, 50; in wartime 58, 63; women in 44—5, 48, 58, 101—2

  Caraffi, A.J. 256

  carbon: glassy/vitreous 109—10; graphitic 88—9, 105, 110, 145, 308; porosity 78—9, 84, 87; RF’s work on 83, 100, 115, 130—I, 222, 243, 308 Carlisle, Harry 85, 143, 193, 249

  Carlson, Caroline and Francis (‘Spike’) 284

  Caro, Anthony 98

  Caro, Rachel 98

  Carr, Ruth 260

  Caspar, Don 268, 270, 321; collaboration with RF 258
—9, 262; Nature papers 269—70; relations with RF 258, 274—5, 280—I, 283, 296, 297, 304; TMV research 246, 253, 258—9; at Yale 273

  Caspar, Mrs 296, 297

  Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge 46, 63, 66, 75; ban on DNA research 159, 165—6, 177, 182, 186; Bragg at 148, 165; Crick at 105, 148, 157, 159, 165—6; King’s team invited to 165; meetings at 149, 150; rivalry with King’s 204, 207; Watson at 159, 165 —6, 262; X-ray diffraction of proteins 148—9

  Chamberlain, Neville 42, 50, 59

  Chargaff, Erwin 243, 274; on Avery 327; Chagaff ratios 123, 182, 183, 190, 196, 202; meeting with Crick and Watson 182 —3; sceptical of Crick-Watson DNA model 224; supplies Wilkins with DNA 153, 155, 195; work on DNA bases 123—4

  Chartridge Lodge, Bucks 18, 27, 35, 39, 40, 51, 80

  Cherwell, Lord 181

  Chicago 243

  Child’s History of England, A (Dickens) 8—9

  Churchill, Winston 28, 59, 60, 82, 155

  Ciba Foundation 267

  City of London 4, 67

  Clark, Peggy, see Dyche, P.

  Clifton College, Bristol 19, 31

  coal 78, 82, 86, 100, 115; Gordon Conference on 233, 238; RF’s lectures on 237; RF’s research 77—9, 83—4, 87, 180, 231, 256, 318

  Cochran, W. 171, 196

  Cohen, Carolyn 169

  Cohen, L.H.L. 14

  Commoner, Barry 245, 253, 265, 274

  Copenhagen 142

  Corey, Robert 148, 177, 187, 188, 190, 191, 194, 199–201

  Corsica 102—3

  Coulson, Charles 106, 108, 110, ill, 138, 166

  Cousinhood: the Anglo-Jewish Gentry (Bermant) 320

  Cowan, Pauline (Harrison) 176, 185—6, 200

  Cratchby, Mrs 262

  Crawford, Anne, see Piper A.

  Crick, Francis: and acknowledgements 207—8, 210, 247, 316; appearance 158; and Bragg 159; at Cavendish 105, 148, 157, 159; Cochran-Crick-Vand paper on helices 171, 196; correspondence with RF 223—4; debt to RF 196—7, 199, 210, 212, 223, 320—i, 323, 346n, 350n; doctoral thesis 159; familiarity with King’s work 198—9, 210, 211—12; as FRS 303; home life 158; at King’s 157; and Klug 273; on Nature 292; Nature letter xix, 207, 210, 212; Nobel prize xx, 311, 325; objections to Watson’s book 311; attitude towards RF 179, 204; and Pauling 186, 188; personality 159, 182—3; relations with RF 234, 254, 262—3, 268—9, 287, 288, 293, 295, 315; reputation 303; on RF as scientist 318—19; Scientific American article 2412, 247; turned down by Birkbeck 105, 221; vetoes Fraser paper 210; as virologist 254, 262, 268, 295; and Watson 159, 262; and Wilkins 153, 157—8, 161, 198, 205; work on DNA xix-xx, 159—60, 164—5, 183, 188, 197—9, 204—5, 223—5, 247; work on X-ray diffraction of proteins 159