Papers of M H F Wilkins: draft text on the immediate impact of the Crick and Watson DNA double helix model, 1953, with related manuscript notes

Four typescript early draft partial copies of chapter 8, ‘The double helix’, from Wilkins’ autobiography, The third man of the double helix (Oxford University Press, 2003), with annotations. Also manuscript notes written Oct 1995-Dec 1996, relating to his perception of events that occurred during X-ray diffraction studies of DNA and the creation of the Watson-Crick double helix model 1950-1953, including: his working relationships with Rosalind Franklin, Francis Crick, James Watson and John Randall; his reasons for turning down co-authorship of Watson and Crick’s DNA double helix hypothesis article published in Nature, Apr 1953; how the work of the Biophysics Unit, King’s College London, connected with other research being undertaken in the early 1950s; Wilkins’ feelings relating to the Watson-Crick double helix model. Original file title ‘HELI 1’.

1995-2000

2 files

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

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

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.