The Cambridge pub whose plaque was replaced in 2023 to include Rosalind Franklin was The Eagle.
The Eagle, on Bene’t Street near the Cavendish Laboratory, is associated with the 1953 DNA story. Francis Crick and James Watson regularly used the pub, and Crick is traditionally said to have announced there that the pair had found the “secret of life” after completing their double-helix model.
A blue plaque installed in 2003 originally emphasized Watson and Crick. Rosalind Franklin’s name was later repeatedly added by hand, reflecting the importance of her X-ray diffraction data and Photo 51, as well as the contributions of Maurice Wilkins and other researchers. In 2023, the deteriorated plaque was replaced with wording that acknowledged those wider contributions.
The plaque’s history illustrates why the DNA story is more complicated than a two-person breakthrough. Franklin and Gosling generated key experimental evidence at King’s College London, while Watson and Crick built the model at Cambridge. The Eagle commemorates the announcement and celebration, not the location where Franklin performed her experiments.