Dorothy Mary Crowfoot was born in Cairo in 1910; the eldest of four daughters of John Crowfoot and Molly (née Hood). Her father worked as Director of Education in Cairo and the Sudan, 1901-1926. On his retirement he became Director of the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, 1927-1935. His wife often accompanied him on archaeological digs and was herself an authority on flowering plants, weaving and dyeing techniques, pottery and glass-making. Dorothy and her sisters, Joan (born 1912), Betty (born 1914) and Diana 'Dilly' (born 1918) were brought up in East Anglia, at the family home in Geldeston. Dorothy was educated at the Sir John Leman School, Beccles, and at Somerville College, Oxford, where she read chemistry 1928-1932. Apart from two years research at Cambridge University after graduation she remained in Oxford for the rest of her career. Here for twenty-five years she combined teaching chemistry at Somerville, with research at the highest level. She became University lecturer and demonstrator in 1946 and University Reader in X-ray crystallography in 1956. From 1960 to official retirement in 1977 she was Wolfson Research Professor of the Royal Society. She received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1964.

She married Thomas Lionel Hodgkin in 1937. He was the son of Robin Hodgkin, Provost of Queens College, Oxford, and his wife, Dorothy. They had three children Luke Howard born 1938, Prudence Elizabeth (Liz) born 1941 and John Robin Tobias (Toby) born 1946. Their daughter, Liz, was a teacher in Zambia, Sudan and Vietnam, and many of the letters below were written to her at her school in Kasama, Zambia.