Maurice Wilkins

From New Zealand to Cambridge

Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins was born on 15 December 1916 in Pongaroa, New Zealand. He moved from New Zealand to Britain as a child and grew up mainly there.

Wilkins studied physics at St John's College, Cambridge, receiving his degree in 1938. He then undertook doctoral work with John Randall at the University of Birmingham.

Wartime Research

During the Second World War, Wilkins worked on radar and uranium-isotope separation. He later worked in Berkeley as part of the Manhattan Project.

After the war, Wilkins worked briefly at St Andrews before joining John Randall's biophysics unit at King's College London. He remained at King's for the rest of his career.

DNA X-ray Diffraction

Wilkins began X-ray studies of DNA at King's. He and graduate student Raymond Gosling produced early DNA diffraction images.

Rosalind Franklin joined King's in 1951 and, working with Gosling, produced much higher-quality X-ray work including Photograph 51. Wilkins and colleagues continued experimental work testing the Watson-Crick DNA model.

Photograph 51 was produced by Franklin and Gosling, not by Wilkins. However, as recorded by King's College London, Wilkins showed the image to Watson without Franklin's knowledge or agreement.

Nobel Prize and Legacy

Wilkins was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1959. In 1962, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Francis Crick and James Watson for their work on the molecular structure of nucleic acids.

He was appointed CBE in 1963. Wilkins later campaigned for socially responsible uses of science. He died on 5 October 2004 in London.