Rosalind Franklin was one of five children in her family, counting her.
She was the second child and eldest daughter of Ellis Arthur Franklin and Muriel Frances Waley. Her siblings were David, the eldest; Colin; Roland; and Jenifer, the youngest. Franklin was therefore part of a family of five children, not four or six.
The Franklin household belonged to an affluent British Jewish family in London. Her father was a merchant banker who also taught evening classes at the Working Men’s College, and the family took an active role in helping Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution during the Second World War.
A frequent source of confusion is the wording “eldest daughter.” Franklin was not the first-born child: her brother David was older. Nor should the count be based only on the daughters or on relatives who lived with the family. The intended total refers to the five Franklin children born to Ellis and Muriel.