Early Life and Education
Franklin was born in Notting Hill, London, into an affluent and influential British Jewish family. Her father was Ellis Arthur Franklin (1894–1964), a London merchant banker, and her mother was Muriel Frances Waley (1894–1976). Rosalind was the elder daughter, and the second child of the family of five children. Her father's uncle was Herbert Samuel (later Viscount Samuel) who was the Home Secretary in 1916 and the first practising Jew to serve in the British Cabinet. He was also the first High Commissioner (the effective governor) for the British Mandate of Palestine. Her aunt Helen Carolin Franklin was married to Norman de Mattos Bentwich, who was the Attorney General in the British Mandate of Palestine. She was active in trade union organisation and the women's suffrage movement, and was later a member of the London County Council.
Despite being raised in a Jewish family, Franklin later became an agnostic. From early childhood she showed exceptional scholastic abilities.
Franklin was educated at St Paul's Girls' School where she excelled in science, Latin and sports. Her family was actively involved with a Working Men's College, where Ellis Franklin, her father, taught electricity, magnetism, and the history of the Great War in the evenings and later became the vice-principal. Later Franklin's family helped settle Jewish refugees from Europe who had escaped the Nazis.
Read more about this topic: Rosalind Franklin
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“As I went forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side huddled together, with their gray hairs streaming, in a secluded valley which the sun had not penetrated; on that, hurrying off in Indian file along some watercourse, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair.”
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834)
“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and Determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “Press On”, has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)