NIGHTINGALE

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy Derbyshire landowning family. For someone from her privileged background to enter nursing was an extraordinary action since in the mid-19^thC the livelihood was held in low regard.

In 1850 Nightingale visited Theodor Fliedner's (1800-1864) vast hospital at Kaiserwerth-am-Rhein. He had been inspired by the work of Elizabeth Fry, whom he had met. Subsequently, she set up a modest nursing programme that furnished training and an assured career. When Florence indicated that she wished to nurse, her parents responded by stating that they would prefer that she had a Mr Fry in the background before doing so.

She is best remembered for her work during the Crimean War of 1854-6. However, this phase took up only a couple of years of a very active and long life. It is unclear how effective her work in The Crimea was. The Army had been planning a short campaign before Sebastopol. Once it had accepted that it was going to winter in The Crimea it built better medical facilities in there. It stopped sending to Scutari men who were clearly going to die. This enabled Nightingale's mortality rates to improve. It is evidenced in her own writing that she was dissatisfied with what she had achieved. This outlook helped inspire her subsequent work and achievements. However, when she returned to Britain in 1856, she had become a national heroine. She used her fame to raise 45,000 to establish the Nightingale Training School for Nursing, which was the first modern nurses training school. It opened at St Thomas's Hospital in 1861. This marked the arrival of nursing as a respectable profession in Britain.

Nightingale s other achievements included overhauling medical care in India, turning hospital building into a science, and playing a leading part in raising funds for the newly founded National Society for Aid to the Sick & Wounded in War, which subsequently became the British Red Cross Society. (She also invented the pie chart.)

Location: 8 South Street, W1Y 5PJ (orange, red)

Website: https://florence-nightingale-foundation.org.uk (A charity that provides scholarships to nurses and health professionals.)

The Florence Nightingale Memorial

The small, western memorial of the three Regent Street memorials is to Florence Nightingale. It was the first major monument to be erected in her memory. It was unveiled in early 1915, a time when the wholesale slaughter of soldiers on the battlefields of Mons and Ypres was still fresh in the public mind. As a result, the government of the day felt the event was untimely and chose not to have a formal unveiling ceremony. Therefore, it had some workmen remove the statue's covering sheets at seven o clock in the morning.

Location: Waterloo Place, SW1Y 5NP (purple, orange)

See Also: MEMORIALS

The Florence Nightingale Museum

The Florence Nightingale Museum is a museum of the history of nursing. It opened in St Thomas's Hospital in 1989.

Location: 2 Lambeth Palace Road, SE1 7EW

Website: www.florence-nightingale.co.uk

David Backhouse 2024