What was Rosalind Franklin's nationality?

Rosalind Franklin was British. She was born in Notting Hill, London, in 1920 and became one of Britain’s most important chemists and X-ray crystallographers.

Franklin studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, and earned a PhD in physical chemistry in 1945. Her early research examined coal and carbon, work that helped establish her expertise in analyzing the structure of difficult, non-crystalline materials. She later spent several productive years in Paris before returning to Britain.

At King’s College London, Franklin applied X-ray diffraction to DNA fibers. Her careful experiments produced crucial evidence about DNA’s helical structure, including the famous diffraction image known as Photo 51. She subsequently moved to Birkbeck College, where she led important research on viruses.

“British” is the expected nationality answer, although biographies may also describe Franklin as English because she was born in London. Those terms are not contradictory here: English identifies her national-cultural origin within the United Kingdom, while British is the broader nationality label.