Early Life
| Double Helix |
|---|
| William Astbury |
| Oswald Avery |
| Francis Crick |
| Erwin Chargaff |
| Jerry Donohue |
| Rosalind Franklin |
| Raymond Gosling |
| Phoebus Levene |
| Friedrich Miescher |
| Sir John Randall |
| Alex Stokes |
| James Watson |
| Maurice Wilkins |
| Herbert Wilson |
Astbury was the fourth child of seven, born in Longton, Staffordshire. His father, William Edwin Astbury, was a potter and provided comfortably for his family. Astbury also had a younger brother, Norman, with whom he shared a love of music.
Astbury might well have become a potter but, luckily, won a scholarship to Longton High School, where his interests were shaped by the Headmaster and second master, both chemists. After becoming Head boy and winning the Duke of Sutherland's Gold Medal, Astbury won the only local scholarship available and went up to Jesus College, Cambridge.
After two terms at Cambridge, his studies were interrupted by service during the First World War. A poor medical rating following appendectomy resulted in his posting in 1917 to Cork, Ireland with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He later returned to Cambridge and finished his last year with a specialization in physics.
After graduating from Cambridge, Astbury worked with William Bragg, first at University College London and then, in 1923, at the Davy-Faraday Laboratory at the Royal Institution in London. Fellow students included many eminent scientists, including Kathleen Lonsdale and J. D. Bernal and others. Astbury showed great enthusiasm for his studies and published papers in "classic crystallography, such as the structure of tartaric acid.
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