What was the name of the school Rosalind Franklin attended as a child?

Rosalind Franklin attended St Paul’s Girls’ School as a child. The independent school in Hammersmith, west London, was especially notable for offering girls serious instruction in subjects such as physics and chemistry—fields Franklin would later pursue professionally.

Franklin joined the school at about age 11 and excelled academically. Her education helped prepare her for the entrance examinations required by Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied chemistry and natural sciences. This was an unusual path for a young woman in the 1930s, when many schools offered girls fewer opportunities in advanced science.

Her scientific career later moved from coal research to X-ray crystallography. At King’s College London, she applied that technique to DNA and helped establish the evidence for its helical structure. St Paul’s Girls’ School is sometimes confused with other prestigious London girls’ schools, but it is the institution identified in Franklin’s biographies. The school continues to list her among its notable former pupils.