Papers of M H F Wilkins: drafts for Wilkins’ autobiography, including his childhood and working relationships with other DNA researchers, including Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick

Typescript accounts covering: Wilkins’ childhood in Birmingham; Rosalind Franklin’s arrival at King’s College London; Wilkins’ presentation at conference at the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, Italy, and meeting with Jim Watson, 1951; Wilkins’ working relationship with Franklin; Wilkins’ perspective on Franklin’s unhappiness at King’s College London; Wilkins’ relationship with other DNA scientists including Jim Watson and Francis Crick. File includes letters from Helen Saibil and Dieter Middendorf commenting on Wilkins’ writing. Aspects of these accounts were used in chapter 1, ‘Distant shores’, chapter 4, ‘Randall’s circus’, chapter 5, ‘Crystal genes’, chapter 6, ‘Go back to your microscopes!’ and chapter 8, ‘The double helix’, in Wilkins’ autobiography, The third man of the double helix (Oxford University Press, 2003).

1991-1996

69pp

King's College London; Saibil, Helen; Middendorf, Dieter

A digitised copy is held by the Wellcome Library as part of Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics.

Available at King’s College London, Archives and Special Collections, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

The original material is held at King’s College London, Archives and Special Collections. This catalogue is held by the Wellcome Library as part of Codebreakers: Makers of Modern Genetics.