The maiden surname of Rosalind Franklin’s mother, Muriel Frances, was Waley.
Muriel Frances Waley married Ellis Arthur Franklin, a London merchant banker and educator, and became the mother of five children. Rosalind, born in 1920, was their eldest daughter and the second child in the family. Her mother’s family name therefore identifies Franklin’s maternal ancestry, not Rosalind’s own surname before marriage.
The Waley name can be easy to confuse with other names connected to Franklin’s family. Her paternal relatives included Herbert Samuel, a prominent British politician, while Rosalind’s scientific career later became associated with DNA, X-ray crystallography, and Photograph 51. None of those names changes the answer to this family-history question.
Franklin’s parents were also involved in helping Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. That family background formed part of the social and intellectual environment in which Rosalind developed her interest in science.