Rosalind Franklin

by Brenda Maddox

  ‘their mother, Caroline Jacob Franklin’: family details in J. Glynn, ‘Rosalind Franklin 1920–1958’.

  ‘Ellis himself would not allow women employees’: M. Franklin, op. cit., p. 189.

  ‘Norland Place on Holland Park Avenue’: Joane Keene (ed.), ‘Norland Place School’.

  ‘Muriel Franklin was a gentle’: ‘Obituary, Muriel Franklin’, the Working Men’s College Journal, Winter 1975-76; M. Franklin’s privately circulated memoir, ‘In the beginning’; JG to author, 14 Oct. 2°°I.

  ‘I got two stars at school’: RF to Caroline Franklin, 5 Mar. 1927.

  ‘the five Ellis children’: author’s interview with UR, 2° Jan. 1999.

  ‘It is Nannie’s birthday’: RF to Caroline Franklin, I° Mar.

  ‘When is Nannie’: MF to AS, II Nov. 1974, Box 2, ASA.

  ‘Do something!’: C. Franklin, ‘Vignettes of Rosalind’, p. 1.

  ‘One recalls a smug’: M. Franklin, ‘Rosalind’, pp. 3-4.

  ‘Rosalind enjoyed this trick of teasing’: ibid., p. 4.

  ‘A child being Lifted Up’: drawing in RF’s personal papers.

  ‘Keyser’s total profits’: Roland Franklin, ‘Ellis in the City’, in M. Franklin, Portrait, p. 188.

  ‘Dear Grandma’: RF to Caroline Franklin from Hotel Splendide, Marseilles. The game described was ‘Kim’s Game’ taken from the Boy Scouts - a development skill from the Boer War.

  ‘They are having a bazaar’: RF to Caroline Franklin, 10 Mar.

  ‘men of the working classes’: M. Franklin, Portrait, p. 162n.

  ‘volunteered to dust the books’: Working Men’s College Journal, 541, 1985 p. 17.

  ‘to give the working man’: ibid., 323, 1923, pp 161-6.

  ‘ribbings’: M. Franklin, ‘Rosalind’, p. 10.

  ‘Please tell Roland’: RF to parents, 11 May ?1930.

  ‘She is obviously very happy’: MF to Arthur Franklin, Bexhill-on-Sea, ‘Sunday’.

  ‘What is the new kitten like?’: RF to parents, ‘Sunday’.

  ‘A half-timbered’: ‘Town’s debt to Independent schools’ place in Bexhill’, Bexhill Observer, 4 Feb. 1967.

  ‘There was a lantern lecture’: RF to parents, 30 Nov. 1930.

  ‘As they did not’: RF to parents, 5 Oct. 1930.

  ‘There was a very interesting lecture last night’: ibid.

  ‘Somebody must have made some mistake’: RF to parents, ‘Tuesday’.

  ‘Please do not say anything’: ibid.

  ‘delicate’: Glynn, ‘Rosalind Franklin 1920-1958’, p. 269.

  THREE Once a Paulina

  ‘At St Paul’s’: reported in the Graphic, 18 Feb. 1922, in H. Bailes, Once a Paulina, p. 87, whose title is borrowed for this chapter.

  ‘It was always’: author’s interview with UR, 19 Jan. 1999.

  ‘Rosalind’s menstrual periods’: R. Franklin medical history, University College Hospital Case No. AD 1651.

  ‘I was told’: RF to parents, 15 May.

  ‘I am very cross’: RF to parents, 26 May.

  ‘I only got B’: RF to parents, ‘Thursday’.

  ‘stodge’: ibid.

  ‘the only real disadvantage’: H. Bentwich, If I Forget Thee, p. 7.

  ‘Rosalind enjoyed stirring him up’: M. Franklin, ‘Rosalind’, p. 4.

  ‘the pivot of his emotional life’: Dennis Overbye, Einstein in Love, p. 337.

  ‘akin to that’: ibid., p. 336.

  ‘magnificent new block’: this and the following material is taken from the ‘Report of the Council on the Educational Work of St Paul’s School for Girls’, Matriculation and School Examinations Council, University of London, Feb. 1935.

  ‘No one asked either of them to dance’: Jean Kerlogue, ‘Memories of Rosalind 1933-1938’, privately circulated booklet.

  ‘incredible innocence’: author’s interview with UR, 21 Jan. 1999.

  ‘The weakness and lack of moral fibre’: M. Franklin, Portrait, p. 180.

  ‘We have just arrived home’, RF to A.E. Franklin, 12 May 1937.

  ‘we enjoyed plenty of fun’: C. Franklin, Vignettes of Rosalind.

  ‘nearly all north country’: RF to parents, 16 Mar. 1938.

  ‘reasonable chance of an award’: RF to A.E. Franklin, 22 Oct. 1938.

  ‘I am very much looking forward’: ibid.

  ‘whole or a half ‘: author’s interview with UR, 20 Jan. 1999.

  ‘French mannerisms’: RF to parents, 4 Jul. 1938, ASA.

  ‘“masses” of sewing’: RF to parents, 25 Jul. 1938.

  ‘some of my own money’: RF to parents, 4 Jul. 1938.

  ‘You will, I know’: Ethel Strudwick to Ellis and Muriel Franklin, 15 Jul. 1938.

  ‘Rosalind Franklin showed great promise’: Minutes of the Governors’ Meeting, 15 Jul. 1938, St Paul’s Girls’ School archives.

  ‘the most unconstitutional act of the century’: Andrew Roberts, speaking on Channel 4, 19 Jul. 2000.

  ‘Does this really mean’: RF to parents, 29 Jul. 1938.

  FOUR Never Surrender

  ‘The myth has got’: see M. B. Ogilvie, with K. L. Meek, Women and Science, p. 134 and Gaby Himsliff, ‘Crusade targets sexism in science’, Observer, 20 Jan. 2002.

  ‘this is the first occasion’: EF to Colin, 20 Oct. 1938, in M. Franklin, Portrait, p. 259.

  ‘awful crowd of people’: RF to parents, 11 Oct. 1938, in ibid.

  ‘ridiculous fuss’: RF to parents, I Feb. 1939, in ibid.

  ‘happened to know’: RF to parents, 20 Oct. 1938, in ibid.

  ‘tell me all’: RF to parents, 16 Mar. 1939, in ibid.

  ‘Who and what’: RF to parents, 5 Feb. 1939. The relative and family friend in question was Dr Redcliffe N. Salaman, FRS (1874-1955), an authority on the potato, from the genetic, sociological and economic point of view.

  RF to parents, 20 Oct. 1938. ‘most exciting’: RF to parents, 15 Nov. 1938.

  ‘over which Prof. Bragg’: RF to parents, 2 Nov. 1938.

  ‘What is a crystal?’: RF undergraduate notebook labelled Minerology, 7/8, CAC.

  ‘people who choose to go into science’: JC interview with Stephen Bragg, II Jan. 1985.

  ‘The complaint about my chemistry’: RF to parents, 20 Jan. 1939.

  can’t find ‘only be because he was American’: ibid.

  ‘Why are you so surprised’: RF to parents, ‘Wednesday’.

  ‘I don’t know what you see in Ros’: GCD (the former Peggy Clark) to AS, 9 Jun. 1976, ASA.

  ‘I would not have gone’: RF to parents, 15 Nov. 1938.

  ‘Apart from your letters’: RF to parents, 20 Nov. 1938.

  ‘The young American historian’: A.M. Schlesinger Jr, A Life in the 20th Century, p. 208.

  ‘unsuitable either climatically’: The Times, 22 Nov. 1938, ‘Jewish Refugees, Settlement Plans in the Colonies’, ‘Admissions to Britain Limited’.

  ‘The statement effectively limited’: S. Sofer, Zionism and the Foundations of Israeli Diplomacy, p. 34.

  ‘I cannot see why there has not been more criticism’: RF to parents, 24 Nov. 1938, in Schlesinger, op. cit., p. 207.

  ‘Whereas my forefathers’: Clause 34, will of A.E. Franklin, signed 16 Jul. 1935.

  ‘I earnestly request my named’: Clause 35, ibid.

  ‘she knows her work’: RF letter to parents, 18 Apr. 1939.

  ‘I have made a frightful mess’: RF letter to parents, 20 May 1939.

  ‘if you are less intelligent’: RF to parents, ‘Tuesday’, May ?1940.

  ‘Now I really feel’: RF letter to parents, ‘Newnham Tuesday’.

  ‘This holiday’, described in M. Franklin, Portrait, pp. 200-1.

  ‘Her father at first’: Glynn, op. cit., p. 270, and JG to author, 2 Jul. 2001.

  ‘I have just had a great triumph’: RF to parents, 5 Oct. 1940.

  ‘Geometrical basis’: RF notebook headed ‘X-ray Crystallography II’, 7/3.39, CAC.

  ‘white things looking like eggs’: RF t
o parents, 13 Mar. ?1940.

  ‘One of the social features’: Gillian Sutherland, ‘Nasty Forward Minxes’, in S. J. Ormrod (ed.), Cambridge Contributions, p. 98.

  ‘I am not one of the people’: RF to parents, 26 Feb. 1940.

  ‘that the reply’: ibid.

  ‘I don’t understand’: RF to EF, 16 May 1940.

  ‘our King’: RF to parents, ‘Tuesday’, May 1940.

  ‘we are being beaten’: RF to EF, 16 May 1940.

  ‘Exams begin’: RF letter to parents, ‘Tuesday’, May 1940.

  ‘got a scrap of brain’: RF to parents, ibid.

  ‘She had got a first’: information from RF’s letter to parents, 12 Jul. 1940, and Dainton’s to AS, 8 Nov. 1976, ASA.

  ‘quite exceptionally bad’: RF to parents, ‘Tuesday’, May 1940.

  ‘You frequently state’: RF to EF, no date; Glynn, op. cit., p. 272, places it as ‘possibly summer 1940’.

  ‘consciously a Jew’: Glynn, ibid., p. 272.

  ‘Ursula felt’: author’s interview with UR, 21 Jan. 1999.

  ‘If it does not go’: RF to parents, 12 Oct. 1940.

  ‘I suppose ‘‘unfurnished”’: RF to MF, 1940.

  ‘I want to have you’: Fred Dainton to AS, 8 Nov. 1976; subsequent details also from this long letter and its follow-up to AS, 24 Nov. 1976, ASA.

  Rosalind’s St Paul’s friend: Jean Kerlogue: ‘Memories of Rosalind’.

  ‘bribed her fourteen-year-old brother’: C. Franklin, op. cit.

  ‘please send my evening dress’: RF to parents, 18 Feb. 1940.

  ‘I can’t think why’: RF to parents, 19 Nov. 1940.

  ‘It was all rather exciting’: RF to parents, 25 Nov. 1940.

  ‘The general attitude’: ‘Women’s Place in Industry, War-time Needs and After, Engineer Trainees’, The Times, 16 Jan. 1941.

  ‘She was inflexible’: Dainton, op. cit.

  ‘almost incapable’: RF to parents, Newnham, 24 May 1940.

  ‘I’m sure it sounds silly’: RF to parents, 24 May 1941.

  ‘not sleeping’: ibid.

  ‘Rosalind confessed’: I.F. Neuner to AS, 22 Jan. 1971, ASM.

  FIVE Holes in Coal

  ‘bad tempered’: this and other details of Norrish’s character taken from Fred Dainton to AS, 24 Nov. 1976, ASA.

  ‘on the pretext’: RF to parents, 3 Oct. 1941.

  ‘I’ve never had so much time’: RF to parents, ‘7 Mill Road, Sunday’.

  ‘a baby wireless’: RF to parents, 30 Jul. 1941.

  ‘50 per cent’: A. Briggs, The War of Words, p. 48.

  ‘one bomb in three’: R. Neilands, The Bomber War, p. 58.

  ‘You can think it’: JDB to C.P. Snow, 11 Apr. 1961, Dept. of Physics Archive, Birkbeck College, University of London.

  ‘Considering the experiences’: RF to parents, ‘The Lab, Wednesday’.

  ‘I like long sentences’: RF to parents, ‘7 Mill Road, Saturday’.

  ‘quite incapable’: RF to parents, ‘7 Mill Road, Tuesday’.

  ‘When I stood up to him’: RF to parents, ‘The Lab, Wednesday’.

  ‘he on the right’: this and subsequent quotes about the dinner from K.C. Paice to AS, 14 Apr. 1976, ASA.

  ‘not thrilling’: RF to parents, ‘7 Mill Road, Sunday’.

  ‘I don’t know whether’: ibid.

  ‘I certainly don’t mind’: RF to EF, I Jun. 1942. I am extremely sorry’: ibid.

  ‘ a room full of junk’: ibid.

  ‘she was extremely kind’: author’s interview with Marianne Weill Baruch, II Oct. 1999.

  ‘as I can never see it’: RF to parents, 27 Jul. 1942.

  ‘I could hardly keep’: RF to MF, 7 Jun. 1942.

  ‘In industry’: ibid.

  ‘and a daily supply of liquid air’: RF to parents, 27 Jul. 1942.

  ‘I think the work sounds’: ibid. Even washing-up’: RF to Evi Ellis, 25 Jul. 1944.

  ‘international reputation’: see Peter J.F. Harris, Rosalind Franklin’s work on coal, carbon and graphite’, pp. 204-9.

  ‘turned the signs around’: Sayre, op. cit., p. 65.

  ‘too good’: Irene Neuner to AS, 22 Feb. 1971, ASA.

  ‘driven more by my fear’: A. Piper, ‘Light on a dark lady’, p. 152.

  ‘There are only two’: Kerlogue, op. cit.

  ‘She wanted a swim’: ibid.

  ‘Irene will be taking’: EF to CF, 10 Oct. 1943, in Portrait, p. 261.

  ‘the house will be’: ibid.

  ‘Of course, for anyone’: RF to Evi Ellis, 25 Jul. 1944.

  ‘alien Jews’: RF to CF, 24 Dec. 1944, Portrait, p. 267.

  ‘Finding a queue’: RF to parents, 4 Jul. 1945.

  ‘He’s merely expressed’: RF to parents, 27 Jun. 1945.

  ‘Forty-three years’: Hertha Ayrton in Joan Mason, The Women Fellows’ Jubilee’, p. 127.

  ‘ Some press reports’: R.L. Sime, Lise Meitner, p. 327.

  ‘If ever you hear’: RF to AW, 3 Feb. 1946, in Glynn, op. cit., p. 276.

  ‘Thermal Expansion’: D.H. Bangham and R. E. Franklin, Thermal Expansion of Coals and Carbonised Coals’.

  ‘I make you notice’: Gaetan Foquet to RF, 18 Jul. 1946.

  ‘I am quite sure’: RF to MF.

  ‘ She did not talk’: Kerlogue, op. cit.

  ‘I think she would have liked’: ibid.

  ‘abrupt. . . enemies’: C.H. Carlisle, Serving My Time in Crystallography at Birkbeck.’

  SIX Woman of the Left Bank

  ‘French speciality’: JC interview with VL, 14 Jun. 1985.

  ‘It was a technique’: Dr M. Oberlin, memorandum on Rosalind’s experience at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l’Etat; memo courtesy of A. Oberlin.

  ‘At great risk to himself’: author’s interview with Rachel Glaeser, 4 Apr. 2000.

  ‘knowing who was alive’: author’s interview with Marianne Weill Baruch, II Oct. 1999.

  ‘unEnglished’: D.H. Lawrence, Mr Noon, pp. 134-5.

  ‘France’s No. 1’: D. Bair, Simone de Beauvoir, p. 327.

  ‘the owner is’: RF to parents, early 1947.

  ‘while London mists’: RF to parents, ibid.

  ‘Of course my standard’: RF to EF, 4 May 1947.

  ‘pure research’: ibid.

  ‘One only feels rich’: ibid.

  ‘the newly nationalised’: the basic holiday travel allowance for an adult was £100, Apr. 1946-47, falling briefly to £35 in autumn 1947, then to nil. (Source, Sanctions Unit, Bank of England Press Office.)

  ‘liberal, Cartesian’: Dr M. Oberlin to Prof. Michio Inagaki, ‘Rosalind E. Franklin - Who was She?’, published in Energeia, p. 4.

  ‘sound and cheerful’: ibid.

  ‘time of her life’: ibid.

  ‘I’ve been told’: RF to parents, 12 May 1948.

  ‘I’ve had dress material’: RF to parents, 11 Oct. 1947.

  ‘post-war style’: Jane Mulvagh to author, 7 Nov. 2001.

  ‘delightfully clean’: RF to parents, 25 Jul. 1947.

  ‘Bananas suddenly appeared’: RF to parents, 27 Jan. 1948.

  ‘As for your remark’: RF to EF, 4 May 1947.

  ‘golden hands’: author’s interview with VL, 26 Oct. 1998.

  ‘When Vittorio and Rosalind’: AS interview with Dr June Goodfield, 1981, ASA.

  ‘He was Jewish’: author’s interview with VL, 26 Oct. 1998.

  ‘Toutes les jeunes filles’, author’s interview with Denise Tchoubar, 4 Apr. 2000.

  ‘At the same time’: AS interview with Mering, 28 May 1970, ASA, and author’s interview with Rachel Glaeser, 4 Apr. 2000.

  ‘puritanical’: AS interview with Rachel Glaeser, 28 May 1970, ASA; Glaeser actually used the word ‘protestant’.

  ‘terrible, hearty’: AS interview with Adrienne Weill, 11 Jun. 1970, ASA.

  ‘Something happened’: author’s interview with UR, 20 Jan. 1999.

  ‘some sort of sexual’: author’s interview with Ann
e Piper, 13 Jan. 1999.

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

  ‘We started out’: RF to CF, 16 Aug. 1947, in Glynn, op. cit., p. 276.

  ‘in black hat’: RF to parents, 3 Apr.

  ‘I’ve just had an absurd’: RF to parents, 12 May 1948.

  ‘Realities in Palestine’: Economist, 27 Mar. 1948.

  ‘seen the 1914 war’: RF to EF, 26 Mar. 1948.

  ‘the absence of’: RF to parents, 9 Sep. 1947.

  ‘to avert’: Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies, p. 16.

  ‘with a good five minutes’: RF to parents, ‘Wednesday’, 1948.

  ‘It’s not dirt’: Dr M. Oberlin, memo on Rosalind’s experience at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l’Etat.

  ‘her radiation monitoring badge’: G. Friedman and M. Friedland, Medicine’s 10 Greatest Discoveries, p. 209.

  ‘Requisitioned by the Germans’: author’s interview with Rachel Glaeser, 23 Mar. 2000.

  ‘Nor, come to that’: CF to author, 31 Jul. 2000.

  ‘utterly exhausted’: RF to parents, ‘Hotel di Fango, Wednesday’.

  ‘she settled her sleeping bag’: Mering retold this story en riant to, among others, Denise Tchoubar: author’s interview with Tchoubar, 4 Apr. 2000.

  ‘was like Queen Victoria’: Rachel Glaeser to AS, 28 May 1970, ASA.

  ‘most unpleasant’: RF to parents, 2 Sep. 1948.

  ‘Nor, come to that’: CF to author, 31 Jul. 2000.

  ‘Denise observed’: AS interviews with Denise Luzzati, 27 and 29 May 1970, ASA.

  Agnes Oberlin, for her part, believed that Mering wanted to be loved and would have returned any love he felt directed to him. Rosalind, in her view, was one of three examples of Mering accepting the boundless admiration and slavish devotion of one of his female staff, only to reject them swiftly and with rancour at the first sign of independence or intellectual discord. Oberlin to BM, 12 May 2001.

  ‘Rosalind burned’: ibid.

  ‘very crisp and very pretty’: AS interview with Dr June Goodfield, April 1981.

  ‘white-shirt, dark-skirt’: fashion interpretation by Jane Mulvagh, 2 Nov. 2001.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t’: RF to parents, ‘Thursday’.

  ‘it would be a bad idea’: RF to Muriel, ‘Monday’.