The Eagle, Michaelmas Term, 2017. On Bene’t Street, the blue plaque outside the pub commemorates the discovery of the structure of DNA. But now, overnight, the legend '+ Franklin' has appeared, someone neatly inscribing her name onto the plaque.

And no wonder. Because the plaque, which reads 'Francis Crick and James Watson first announced their discovery of how DNA carries genetic information', has for some reason neglected to mention that Watson and Crick’s discovery relied upon experimental X-ray data from Dr Rosalind Franklin (Newnham 1938), as well as an X-ray photograph of DNA taken by her PhD student Raymond Gosling.

The tidy letters of the '+ Franklin' grafitti were cleaned off, but it wasn’t long before they were back. This dance was repeated as the years went by, until eventually the authorities simply stopped removing it. When the plaque – now quite seriously deteriorated – was replaced in summer 2023, its new wording recognised the role of Franklin, Wilkins 'and other scientists' in Watson and Crick’s breakthrough.

Cambridge’s anonymous posse of Sharpie-wielding Rosalind Franklin fans may have achieved their aim, but the replacement of the plaque isn’t the end of the story for '+ Franklin'. Gifted to the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, the original plaque is now on display there, alongside one of Franklin’s DNA research notebooks on loan from the Churchill Archives Centre.

As the first artefact relating to the discovery of DNA ever held by the Whipple, the plaque offers a unique opportunity to explore this crucial slice of scientific history, explains Joshua Nall, the Museum’s director and curator (pictured). “The traditional way would be with a model of DNA – which would be a replica, because the original doesn’t survive. Now we have the plaque we can do something more interesting, which is display the story, the controversy surrounding the story, and that bit of local cultural history where someone decided that it was time this plaque was modified,” he says.

It nods to a wider story too. “One of the abiding interests of our discipline, over the last decade plus, has been a growing realisation that much of what remains to be done for historians of science is to try and recover some of the hidden and missing voices,” says Nall. “When you dig a bit deeper, it’s usually a much more complicated story.”

The plaque, and Franklin’s notebook, will be on display together until 19 December 2024. For more information, visit the Whipple Museum's website.