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Rosalind Franklin Timeline
(July 25, 1920 – April 16, 1958)Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose pioneering work produced critical evidence of the structure of DNA, as well as major contributions to understanding the structures of viruses and coal. Her famous 'Photo 51' was essential to the discovery of the DNA double helix, though her role was long underrecognized before her untimely death at age 37. More Less
Early Life and Education
Birth in London
Jul 25, 1920
Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born in Notting Hill, London, into a wealthy and influential Anglo-Jewish family. She was the second of five children and would go on to become one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century.
Image source: Rosalind Franklin
Education at St Paul's Girls' School
1932 - 1938
Franklin attended St Paul's Girls' School in London, one of the few schools at the time that taught chemistry and physics to girls. She excelled in science and decided to pursue a scientific career despite her family's expectations.
Image source: St Paul's Girls' School
Enters Newnham College, Cambridge
1938
Franklin began studying natural sciences at Newnham College, Cambridge. She worked in the laboratory of physical chemist Ronald Norrish, a future Nobel laureate, though the experience was largely unfulfilling for her.
Image source: Newnham College, Cambridge
Graduates from Cambridge
1941
Franklin graduated from Cambridge with a degree in chemistry. Women were not yet entitled to full membership of the university, and her degree was initially awarded as 'degree titular' rather than a full BA.
Awarded PhD from Cambridge
1945
Franklin received her PhD in physical chemistry from Cambridge for her thesis on the microstructure of coal, based on her wartime research. The work established her reputation as a rigorous experimental scientist.
Scientific Career
Wartime research on coal microstructure
1942 - 1945
During World War II, Franklin worked at the British Coal Utilisation Research Association, studying the porosity of coal. Her research helped classify coals and predict their performance as fuels and in gas masks.
Postdoctoral work in Paris
1947 - 1950
Franklin spent three years at the State Chemical Laboratory in Paris under Jacques Mering, where she became an accomplished X-ray crystallographer. She later described her Paris years as the happiest of her life.
Image source: Rosalind Franklin
Joins King's College London
Jan 1951
Franklin joined John Randall's Medical Research Council biophysics unit at King's College London as a research associate, where she was tasked with setting up and improving the laboratory's X-ray crystallography work on DNA fibers.
Image source: King's College London
Moves to Birkbeck College
1953
As a condition of leaving King's College, Franklin agreed not to work on DNA and turned instead to virus structure. At Birkbeck, she built a productive research group with support from John Desmond Bernal.
Image source: Birkbeck, University of London
Publishes tobacco mosaic virus work
1955
After leaving King's College, Franklin moved to Birkbeck College, where she led pioneering X-ray studies of the tobacco mosaic virus, establishing that its RNA was embedded within the virus particle.
Image source: Tobacco mosaic virus
Key Facts
- Rosalind Franklin was born in London on July 25, 1920, and earned her PhD in physical chemistry from Cambridge University in 1945.
- Her X-ray diffraction image known as 'Photo 51', taken in 1952, provided crucial evidence that DNA had a helical structure.
- James Watson and Francis Crick used Franklin's data—shared without her knowledge or consent—to build their 1953 model of the DNA double helix.
- She made significant later contributions to virology, including research on the tobacco mosaic virus and polio virus.
- Franklin died of ovarian cancer on April 16, 1958, at age 37, and was never nominated for the Nobel Prize awarded to Watson, Crick, and Maurice Wilkins in 1962.
Source
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