Rosalind Franklin

by Brenda Maddox

  ‘I can’t face the man’: RF to parents.

  ‘Tuesday’.

  ‘Don’t you realise?’: R. Olby in Daedalus, p. 244.

  ‘entirely reasonable’: Charles Coulson to RF, II Jun. 1949, CAC.

  ‘Rosalind certainly planned’: Margaret Nance Pierce to author, 22 Jan. 2001.

  ‘also claimed descent’: CF to author, 8 Oct. 2001.

  ‘I shan’t come home’: RF to CF, 10 Oct. 1949.

  SEVEN Seine v. Strand

  ‘If you are interested’: Coulson to RF, II Jun. 1949 in Olby, The Path to the Double Helix, p. 345.

  ‘I am, of course’: RF to Coulson, 23 Mar. 1950 in ibid., pp. 345-6.

  ‘Philip, an American war veteran’: author’s interview with Philip Hemily, 3 Nov. 1998.

  ‘Monsieur J. Mering, for his guidance’: R. Franklin, ‘The Interpretation of diffuse X-ray Diagrams of Carbon.’

  ‘half of me’: RF to parents, 3 Mar. 1950.

  ‘The best I ever’: RF to parents, 15 May 1950.

  ‘Denise Luzzati could see’: AS interviews with Denise Luzzati, 26 and 28 May 1970, ASA.

  ‘Rosalind’ s sister and brother’: Jenifer Glynn to author, 27 Nov. 2001.

  Rosalind, in her view, A. Oberlin to author, 12 May 2001.

  ‘by means of X-ray diffraction’: I.C.M. Maxwell to Principal, King’s College, 7 Jul. 1950, CAC.

  ‘I’d really like’: RF to parents, 15 May 1950.

  ‘pretty well top of the list’: JTR to Principal, King’s College, 19 Jun. 1950, CAC.

  ‘not pleased’: author’s interview with Noel Richley, 20 Jan. 1999.

  ‘there is a much healthier’: RF to parents, I Aug. 1950.

  ‘oscillate wildly’: RF to CF, 26 May 1950.

  ‘to change, ‘‘Seine. . . Strand’: RF to parents, 13 Jul. 1950.

  ‘I have no idea’: RF to parents, 21 Aug. 1950.

  ‘Of course’: JC interview with VL, 14 Jun. 1985.

  ‘I can’t possibly’: RF to parents, 29 Oct. 1950.

  ‘I spend half ‘: ibid.

  ‘What depressed me most’: RF to Evi Ellis, I Oct. 1950.

  ‘Please forgive me’ and preceding information: RF to JTR, 24 Nov. 1950, CAC.

  ‘After very careful consideration’: JTR to RF, 4 Dec. 1950, CAC. The existence of this important letter was not known until it appeared in 1974 in Olby, op. cit., p. 346.

  ‘Dr Stokes . . . This means’: ibid.

  ‘foreigners better’: RF to parents, 29 Oct. 1950.

  PART TWO

  EIGHT What Is Life?

  ‘Published with other measurements’: W.T. Astbury, and Florence O. Bell, ‘X-Ray Study of Thymonucleic Acid’.

  ‘I have not published’: Oswald Avery to Roy Avery, 26 May 1943 in J. Cairns, G. Stent and J.D. Watson, Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology, pp. 3:85-7.

  ‘nucleic acids must’: O. Avery, C. MacLeod and M. McCarty, ‘Studies on the Chemical Transformation of Pneumococcal Types’, pp. 137-59.

  ‘doing something’: E. Schrödinger, What is Life? p. 70.

  ‘When one of the inventors’: G. Stent, ‘That Was The Molecular Biology That Was’, Science, 160, 26 Apr. 1968; reproduced in Cairns et al. op. cit., p. 347.

  NINE Joining the Circus

  ‘great personal quarrels’: H.F. Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation, p. 101.

  ‘patriarchy personified’: S. Benstock, Women of the Left Bank, pp. 447-8.

  ‘politically embittered’: M. Franklin, ‘Rosalind’, p. 20.

  ‘tense and unbending’: author’s interview with John Bradley, 28 Nov. 2000.

  ‘every time an Englishman’: Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, ‘Why Can’t the English?’: Act I, Song 2, My Fair Lady, drawn from G.B. Shaw’s Preface to Pygmalion.

  ‘typically upper-class’: AS interview with Jean Hanson, ASA.

  ‘Professor of Dogmatic Theology’: Mary Fraser to author, 16 May 2000.

  ‘the joint’: Douglas Johnson, obituary of Lord Annan, Guardian, 23 Feb. 2000.

  ‘hooded crows’: Dr Walter Gratzer, conversation with author. ‘Chere Mademoiselle’ : postcard from Faculte des Sciences de l’Universite de Paris, Laboratoire de Mineralogie (signature illegible), 2 Feb. 1951.

  ‘the PhD slave boy handed over in chains’: Sayre, op. cit., p. 101.

  ‘JT’ etc: author’s interview with RG, 19 Oct. 1999.

  ‘beautiful dark eyes’: JC interview with RG, 19 Apr. 1985.

  ‘to concern himself ‘: JTR to RF, 4 Dec. 1950, in Olby, op. cit., p. 346.

  ‘very attractive’: author’s interview with Louise Heller, 9 Jan. 2000.

  ‘Gosling, working in conjunction’: JTR to RF, 4 Dec. 1950.

  ‘grab her and get her in on the DNA work’: author’s interview with MW, 4 Nov. 2000, and S. Chomet, Genesis of a Discovery, p. 15.

  ‘a single DNA fibre’: ibid., p. 17.

  ‘equipment from Paris’: Etablissements Beaudouin to RF, 16 Feb. 1951, JNC.

  ‘communicated by’: R. Franklin, ‘Crystallite growth in graphitising and non-graphitising carbons’, pp. 196-218.

  ‘rough edges’: M. Wilkins, ‘John Turton Randall’, Biographical Memoirs, pp. 510-11.

  ‘most valuable cargo’: ibid., p. 505.

  ‘put in his claim’: JTR correspondence with his lawyers, the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Commission on Rewards for Investors, CAC.

  ‘Endorsement for the unit’: the history of the King’s Biophysics Unit is told in Olby, op. cit., p. 329.

  ‘beef steak between the poles of his magnet’: Wilkins, op. cit., pp. 510-11.

  ‘Randall’s Circus’: this was occasionally a term of abuse, JC interview with RG, 19 Apr. 1985.

  ‘love of plants’: Wilkins, op. cit., p. 510.

  ‘tough as old leather’: JC interview with MW, 17 Jun. 1985.

  ‘a dog’s walking’: J. Boswell, Life of Johnson, p. 114.

  ‘only seven’: O. Opfell, p. xiv; The Lady Laureates J. Mason, ‘Women Fellows’ Jubilee’, p. 133.

  ‘a quasi-religious’: M. Wertheim, p. xiv.

  ‘barriers to the entry’: ibid., p. xv.

  ‘Harvard. . . cover of darkness’: ibid., p. 223.

  ‘command performance’: author’s interview with Heller, 9 Jan. 2000.

  ‘steady watchful dark eyes’: Wilkins, Memoirs, pre-publication ms.

  ‘He discussed with her a paper’: ibid.

  ‘spikiness’, ‘real cream’: ibid.

  ‘trust Avery’: Chomet, op. cit., p. 13.

  ‘judged too severely’: J.T. Randall, ‘An Experiment in Biophysics’, p. 2.

  ‘young Norwegian researcher’: ibid., p. 16.

  ‘necking’: ibid., p.15.

  ‘This breaking down’: ibid., p. 2.

  ‘severe cramps’: University College Hospital record, AD1651, notes by Prof. Nixon, H.S., 2 Sep. 1956.

  ‘Oh well’: JC interview with Freda Ticehurst, 31 May 1985.

  ‘Very well read. . . bra undone’: JC interview with Dr Simon Altmann, 26 Jun. 1985; author’s interview with Altmann, 2 Dec. 1999.

  ‘not only took my lecture’: AS to GCD, 28 Jun. 1978, ASA.

  ‘Camembert’: Margaret Nance Pierce to author, 24 Jul. 1999; ‘potatoes’: Liebe Klug, 7 Oct. 1999; ‘garlic’: author’s interview with UR, 29 Jan. 1999.

  ‘Is it your turn’: author’s interview with UR.

  TEN Such a Funny Lab ‘Thanne longen folk’: G. Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, Prologue.

  ‘foreign visits’: MRC Annual Report, 1951-52, p. 41.

  ‘happy to stand in’: Wilkins, op. cit.

  ‘fantastically irregular’: Watson, The Double Helix, p. 23.

  ‘if Maurice really’: ibid., p. 24.

  ‘a natural structural system for biological macromolecules’: Carlisle, op. cit., p. 29.

  ‘after having suffered’: S. Furberg, ‘My Work on Nucleic Acid Structure 1947-49’.

  ‘super’: author’s interview with RG, 19 Oc
t. 1999.

  ‘She shouldn’t’: JC interview with Geoffrey Brown, 2 May 1985.

  ‘had the sort of ‘: author’s interview with Louise Heller.

  ‘Monsieur J. Mering’: R. Franklin, ‘Structure of Graphitic Carbons’, pp. 253-61.

  ‘a rather peevish’: R.F. Tuckett to AS, 8 Apr. 1976, ASA.

  ‘He’s so middle-class’: VL to author, 26 Oct. 1998.

  ‘at least what one wants’: F. Jacob, The Statue Within, pp. 262-3.

  ‘the biggest mistake’: F.H.C. Crick, What Mad Pursuit?, p. 58.

  ‘Helices were’: ibid., p. 60.

  ‘the solution’: ibid.

  ‘the people giving’: Richard Morrison, ‘What did the Festival of Britain organisers get so right?’, The Times, 26 Apr. 2001.

  ‘its scientific genius’: ibid.

  ‘Go back to your microscopes’: author’s interview with MW, 4 Apr. 2000; also JC interview with MW, 17 Jun. 1985; Watson, op. cit.

  ‘as far as the experimental X-ray effort’: JTR to REF, 4 Dec. 1950, CAC.

  ‘Decades later’: author’s conversation with MW.

  ‘exciting project in biophysics’: Wilkins, op. cit.

  ‘Now she’s trying’: JC interview with G. and A. Brown, 2 May 1985.

  ‘Her manner was brusque’: Norma Sutherland Clarke in e-mail to author, 12 Jul. 2000.

  ‘Anne knew’: A. Piper, ‘Camping Holiday 1951’, p. 7. privately circulated memoir; also mentioned in A. Piper, ‘Light on a dark lady’, p.152.

  ‘a heavenly view’: RF to AW, 21 Oct. 1951, ASA.

  ‘one of those very able’: Piper, op. cit., p. 151.

  ‘Brazenly he wrote’: LP to JTR, 25 Sep. 1951, PA.

  ‘Wilkins and others’: JTR to LP, 28 Aug. 1951, PA.

  ‘worth perhaps 1/5000 of a Nobel Prize’: Chomet, op. cit., p. 42.

  ‘Crick’s reply’: Friedman and Friedland, op. cit., p. 210.

  ‘Stokes has supplied’: MW to RF, in Olby, op. cit., p. 342.

  ‘most beautiful X-ray photographs’: J.D. Bernal, ‘Obituary, Rosalind Franklin’, Nature, and M. Franklin, op. cit., p. 27. With hindsight, according to Aaron Klug, earlier photographs taken at King’s had obtained fuzzy patterns that could later be recognised as the B form of DNA. Rosalind’s unique achievement was twofold, ‘to obtain a well-defined B pattern and characterise it as belonging to a definite structural state of DNA’: A. Klug, ‘Rosalind Franklin and the Discovery of the Structure of DNA’, p. 880.

  ‘How dare you interpret my data for me!’: in Olby, op. cit., p. 344.

  ‘weeping’: C. Franklin, op. cit., p. 6.

  ‘I’m sorry I have been silent’: RF to AW, 21 Oct. 1951, ASA.

  ‘Far from settling’: author’s conversation with MW, 3 May 2000.

  ‘acting as Envoy’: RG to JTR, 15 Aug. 1972, CAC.

  ‘He got very down’: author’s interview with Freda Ticehurst Collier, 14 Dec. 1999.

  ‘It’s just like snot!’: RG to JTR, 15 Aug. 1972, CAC.

  ‘We ended up smelling’: R.D.B. Fraser to author, 31 Mar. 2001.

  ‘the borderline between’: Crick, op. cit., p. 20.

  ‘this side of eccentric’: JC interview with G. and A. Brown.

  ‘she wore white’: author’s interview with RG, 19 Oct. 1999.

  ‘To Dorothy Hodgkin’: G. Ferry, Dorothy Hodgkin: A Life, p. 246.

  ‘That’s the way we did it’: R.D.B. Fraser to author, 10 May 2000.

  ‘Rosy’s Parlour’: JC interview with W.R. Seeds, 4 Jun. 1985.

  ‘little schoolboys’: ibid.

  ‘When Fraser asked her’: R.D.B. Fraser to author, 6 Feb. 2000.

  ‘Wilkins said the same’: ibid.

  ‘That’s very nice’: author’s interview with RG, 19 Oct. 1999.

  ‘Momentarily’: Watson, op. cit., p. 45.

  ‘Though her features’: ibid.

  ‘the product’: ibid.

  ‘Stimulated’: Olby, op. cit., p. 357.

  ‘pugnaciously assertive’: Watson, op. cit., p. 60. Watson ascribes this reaction to Gosling too.

  ‘now she was a little bit’: RG to JC.

  ‘in fact there was a lot of water’: Olby, op. cit., p. 360.

  ‘This pact’: Friedman and Friedland, op. cit., p. 223, ‘and Watson, The Double Helix pp. 13-14.

  ‘This interpretation’: Joan Mason to author, 20 Aug. 1999.

  ‘Alex Stokes had an equation’: this ditty, performed at the 1952 Biophysics dinner, was written by and supplied by Stan Bayley and Prof. Edward Deeley.

  ‘Over the holiday break’: RF to AS, 1952, ASA.

  ELEVEN The Undeclared Race

  ‘It’s what a crystallographer’: author’s interview with VL, 26 Oct. 1998.

  ‘Crystallographers, notably Dorothy Hodgkin’: Dorothy Hodgkin note to AS, enclosed in letter to David Sayre, 6 Jan. 1975, ASA.

  ‘Adrienne Weill was well aware’: AS interview with AW, 11 Jun. 1970, ASA.

  ‘Real test’: RF notebook labelled

  ‘Stockholm 1951’, FRNK 3/1, CAC.

  ‘the structure speaking’: author’s interview with L.H.L. Cohen, 2 Oct. 1999.

  ‘the queen of the Patterson’: Ferry, op. cit., p. 244.

  ‘Gosling had nightmares’: R. Gosling in Chomet, op. cit., p. 66.

  ‘That is what she felt she was there to do’: ibid., p. 48.

  ‘a helical structure’: ibid, p. 4.

  ‘was also derived’: W. Cochran, F.H.C. Crick and V. Vand, ‘The Structure of Synthetic Polypeptides . . .’, p. 582.

  ‘What is it’: RF to AS, 1 Mar. 1952, ASA.

  ‘retreating into a disconcerting’: Glynn, op. cit., p. 276.

  ‘watchful, suspicious and timid’: Sir W. Scott, op. cit., Chapter 11.

  ‘stacks’. . . ‘homicide’: AS to RF, 8 Mar. 1952, ASA.

  ‘Whatever one may have against’: RF to AS, I Mar. 1952, ASA.

  ‘I went and took it back’: author’s interview with Geoffrey Brown, 10 Feb. 2000.

  ‘She nearly scared’: author’s interview with Sir John Cadogan.

  ‘She looked beautiful’: AS interview with RG, ASA.

  ‘Franklin barks’: MW to FHCC, 1952, in Olby, op. cit., p. 366.

  ‘Her thick sheaf of notes’: R. Franklin, ‘5 lectures on X-ray diffraction’, Jan-Feb. 1952, JNC.

  ‘Like most British labs’: G. Ferry quoting Warren Weaver of the Rockefeller Foundation, op. cit., p. 246.

  ‘best she had ever seen’: ibid., p. 275.

  ‘handedness’: ibid., pp. 275-6.

  ‘Watson has often used’: author’s interview with Jack Dunitz, 2 Oct. 2000.

  ‘From the X-ray evidence’: MRC 52/200, PRO 72037, Ref. FD1-7102. Randall’s progress report was one of two items on the agenda.

  ‘would not take no’: Margaret Nance Pierce to author, 26 Jul. 2000.

  ‘“Don’t’’ was Rosalind’s advice’: author’s interview with Pauline Cowan Harrison, 26 Jul. 2000.

  ‘extremely excellent. . . try our luck’: JDW to Max Delbruck, 20 May 1952, in Olby, op. cit., pp. 367-8.

  ‘interest whetted’: ibid., p. 378.

  ‘the cylindrical Patterson function’: Olby, ‘Rosalind Elsie Franklin’, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, pp. 3:39-42.

  ‘As Rosalind was necessarily involved’: Dorothy Hodgkin to David Sayre, 7 Jan. 1975, ASA.

  ‘I’m afraid we always’: FHCC in Judson, op. cit., p. 141.

  ‘a pathetic place’: RF to AS and David Sayre, 2 Jun. 1952, ASA.

  ‘I do not know’: Katarina Kranjc to AS, 24 Mar. 1970, ASA.

  ‘They all spoke French’: Prof. Dr D. Grdenic to AS, II May 1970, ASA.

  ‘They reckon’: RF to AS and David Sayre, 2 Jun. 1952, ASA.

  ‘all too good’: ibid.

  ‘The pure sodium salt’: ‘The New Physics and Engineering Laboratories’, King’s College London pamphlet issued for the opening ceremony by the Lord Cherwell, FRS, 27 Jun. 1952.

  ‘the
most beautiful buildings’: Watson, op. cit., p. 28.

  ‘the most attractive site’: J.D. Watson, A Passion for DNA, p. 21.

  ‘two pitchmen’: E. Chargaff in Judson, op. cit., p. 144.

  ‘had to go’: Dr Lewis Wolpert in ‘The Dark Lady’, BBC Radio 4, 27 Feb. 1987, said that Rosalind was asked to leave King’s.

  ‘continue to study’: I.C. Maxwell to JTR, I Jul. 1952, CAC.

  ‘banana-shaped’: RF notebooks, ‘banana-shaped peaks’.

  ‘buried in paper’: JC interview with W.R. Seeds, 4 Jun. 1985.

  ‘We spent ages. . . tell us the structure’: author’s interview with RG, 19 Oct. 1999.

  ‘Rubbish!’: author’s interview with AK, 6 Jul. 1999, and KCH to JC, 23 Jun. 1985.

  ‘By the time’: RG in Chomet, op. cit., p. 68.

  ‘It is with great regret’: RF and RG, ‘Death of a Helix’, in Judson, op. cit., p. 144.

  ‘At no time’: RG to JTR, 15 Aug. 1972, CAC.

  ‘Stokes later admitted’: JC interview with A. Stokes, 21 Jun. 1985.

  ‘Why not ask’: H.R. Wilson, ‘The double helix and all that’, p. 276.

  ‘Colleagues at King’s’: JC interview with W.R. Seeds, 4 Jun. 1985; JC interview with RG, 24 Jun. 1985.

  ‘She was a very powerful personality’: author’s interview with Pauline Cowan, 26 Jul. 2000.

  ‘woollen underwear’: LP to PP, 22 Oct. 1952, PA.

  ‘Mama wants to know’: LP to PP, 22 Oct. 1952, PA.

  ‘full of French girls’: PP to LP, 28 Oct. 1952 , PA.

  ‘Stranded whales’: PP to L and AHP, 13 Jan. 1953, PA.

  ‘with certainty’: RF, in MRC report, 5 Dec. 1952, p. 8, PRO FDI/7102 66670.

  ‘lunch . . . tea’: PRO FDI/7102, 29 Dec. 1952.

  ‘Salisbury is now satisfied’: memo, Sir Harold Himsworth, 20 Dec. 1952 PRO FDI/7102 66670; not marked ‘Confidential’, Sir H.P. Himsworth to MP, 12 Jul. 1968, JNC.

  TWELVE Eureka and Goodbye

  ‘Rosy, of course’: J.D. Watson, The Double Helix, p. 105.

  ‘splendid X-ray photographs’: R. Corey to RF, 13 Apr. 1953, in Olby, op. cit., p. 396.

  ‘The stage reached’: A. Klug, ‘Rosalind Franklin and the Discovery . . .’, pp. 808-10, 843-4; reprinted in Watson, op. cit., p. 156.

  ‘You know how children’: PP to LP, 13 Jan. 1953, PA.

  ‘Second sunny day’: PP to LP, early 1953 , PA.