Francis Crick was born in Northampton, England, on June 8, 1916. His father, Harry Crick, was a shoemaker, and his mother, Annie Elizabeth Wilkins Crick, was a schoolteacher. Crick had two younger sisters, Elizabeth and Barbara.
Crick's early childhood was marked by tragedy. His father died of cancer when Crick was just four years old, and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was twelve. Crick and his sisters were raised by their aunt and uncle, who lived in Northampton.
Crick showed a talent for science at an early age. He excelled in mathematics and physics, and he was particularly interested in biology. He attended Northampton Grammar School, where he was a top student.
In 1933, Crick won a scholarship to University College London, where he studied physics. He graduated in 1937 with a Bachelor of Science degree. Crick then went on to study at the Cavendish Laboratory, where he worked on a variety of research projects.
In 1940, Crick met Rosalind Franklin, a brilliant crystallographer who was working at the Cavendish Laboratory. Franklin was working on a project to determine the structure of DNA, and Crick became interested in her work. Together, they developed a model for the structure of DNA that was published in the journal Nature in 1953.
Crick's work on DNA earned him a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962. He shared the prize with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins, who had also worked on the DNA project.
After winning the Nobel Prize, Crick continued to work as a research scientist. He also became a professor at the University of Cambridge, where he taught molecular biology. Crick died of colon cancer in 2004.