Papers of Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins, 1854-2004, including: laboratory notebooks, graphs, data sets, notes, x-ray diffraction photographs and published articles relating to his scientific research, 1948-1976, chiefly his work on the structure of DNA, 1947-1966; correspondence, 1948-2004, with and about scientific colleagues, including Struther Arnott, Allen Blaurock, Francis Crick, Boris Ephrussi, Harriet Ephrussi-Taylor, Bruce Fraser, Meyer Friedman, Raymond Gosling, Leonard Hamilton, John Kendrew, Robert Langridge, Don Marvin, Linus Pauling, Max Perutz, John Randall, Alec Stokes, James Watson and Herbert Wilson. Correspondence, notes and articles, 1950-2003, relating to research on the history of the discovery of the structure of DNA, including: copies of Rosalind Franklin's laboratory notebooks and articles, 1951-1953, relating to her DNA research; correspondence, 1967-2003, with writers on DNA history, including Aaron Klug, Robert Olby, Meyer Friedman, Horace Judson and Watson Fuller; unpublished articles and talks on DNA history by Wilkins, 1975-1987. Drafts, notes, correspondence and collected background research relating to Wilkins' autobiography, The third man of the double helix (Oxford University Press, 2003). Papers relating to Wilkins' education and early career, 1928-1942, including: teenage essays and fiction on the role of science, 1928-1934; notes, articles and photographs, 1937-1938, relating to his student activities, including physics experiments, and photographs relating to his incendiary bomb testing for Cambridge Scientists Anti-War Group, 1938. Correspondence, memoranda, minutes, reports and notes, 1962-1982, relating to the administration of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Biophysics Unit, King's College London (from 1964, the Department of Biophysics), on topics including funding, staffing, equipment provision and teaching. Correspondence, course handouts, student essays (CLOSED) and background material, 1971-1996, relating to the undergraduate course, 'The social impact of the biosciences', created and run by Wilkins, 1972-1982. Correspondence, newsletters and conference papers relating to Wilkins' involvement in political pressure groups, 1968-2003, notably the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (of which Wilkins was founding President, 1969-1991), Food and Disarmament International (Wilkins' was founding President, 1984-2004), the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and the Pugwash Conferences on World Affairs. Audio recordings, 1972-1996, including lectures by Wilkins on: social responsibility in science; his Eddington Memorial Lectures,Cambridge, 1977-1978, on the history and philosophy of science; nuclear disarmament, 1981; his retirement speech, 1982; the history of DNA.

Papers, c1914-1989, of Dame Kathleen Lonsdale.

Biographical material includes correspondence and papers relating to imprisonment in Holloway Prison, with Lonsdale's own accounts of her time there; diaries and personal notebooks, 1946-1969; letters of congratulation on election as Fellow of the Royal Society (1945); various photographs dating from school to her later years.

Papers relating to Lonsdale's teaching and administrative work at University College London include papers on teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses; significant documentation relating to laboratory personnel, research funding and general university administration; papers relating to the 'Round Table on Peace Studies', which proposed the establishment of a centre for research into international conflict at the University.

Research material, 1924-1970, consists of Royal Institution papers comprising notebooks, one dating from Lonsdale's first period there (1923-1927), correspondence with colleagues such as W H Bragg and J M Robertson, and Lonsdale's notes and drafts for various research topics; correspondence and papers from her University College years covering many different areas of research, including diffuse scattering of X-rays, thermal vibrations in crystals, methonium compounds and urinary calculi (the latter topic particularly well documented and including several case studies), and including a large group of photographs, mostly of X-ray diffraction patterns.

Papers on the preparation of volumes of the International Tables for crystal structure determination from Lonsdale's chairmanship of the Commission on Tables (1948) comprise drafts, notes and correspondence with colleagues and publishers.

Extensive papers relating to publications, lectures and broadcasts include drafts of articles, on subjects including peace and religious issues, also including obituaries and biographical articles on various individuals, books, book reviews, obituaries, and letters to newspapers and magazines, the latter principally on the issue of atomic weapons; general correspondence concerning publications; drafts of lectures, 1945-1970, including ethics and the role of science in society; a large series of lecture notes, 1933-1970; scripts for broadcasts, on topics ranging from crystallography to religion, 1945-1967.

Papers on foreign and domestic travel, 1943-1971, relating to conferences and lectures, on crystallography, science ethics, and work for the Society of Friends, including her visit to China (1955) and her world tour (1965).

Papers relating to organisations, notably the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) and the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr), including material relating to a number of International Congresses of Crystallography, also papers relating to participation in Pugwash Conferences on World Affairs, 1958-1970, and papers concerning prison reform and the running of Bullwood Hall Borstal, Essex.

Correspondence, 1927-1974, comprises two main sequences, one arranged alphabetically, the other chronologically; 'day files', principally carbons of outgoing correspondence, 1966-1969; a sequence of references and recommendations; also including correspondence relating to Lonsdale's period of imprisonment (1943). Correspondents include scientists such as Max Born, W H Bragg, W L Bragg, E G Cox, Dorothy Hodgkin, Judith Milledge, L C Pauling and A J C Wilson.