Person    | Female  Born 12/5/1820  Died 13/8/1910

Florence Nightingale

Categories: Medicine, Seriously Famous

Countries: Crimea, Italy, Turkey

Nurse, statistician, author. Born in Italy (go on, guess which city) while her parents were on the grand tour. Her sister was born one year earlier in Naples, and named Frances Parthenope, the Greek form of 'Naples', of course. From a rich, well-connected family she should have married well and settled down, but that was not in her make-up, she wanted to 'do' something important, despite her family's, initial, disapproval.

Already a (religious) committed nurse, she heard about the horrific conditions of the soldiers in the Crimean War and went with a staff of 38 other nurses to Scutari, Turkey, 330 miles from the British Camp at Balaklava. The high death rate at Scutari was largely due to unsanitary conditions; 10 soldiers died of diseases to every one that died of battle wounds. This was not improved until the government sent a Sanitary Commission to the hospital, 6 months after Nightingale had arrived. The incompetence of the army war machine was largely due to the Duke of Cambridge's influence. Back in Britain she analysed the figures and understood the importance of sanitary living conditions which she promoted through the rest of her career. She was a powerful woman with a domineering streak, but as a woman she was prevented from doing many things directly and had to achieve many of her objectives through men. Statistics were one of her tools and she was a pioneer in the use of graphical analysis as a call to action and her report to Parliament contained a very early use of the rose diagram. In 1859 she published 'Notes on Nursing' which was a basis for the formation of the modern nursing profession.

Never married but had courtships with men, and warm friendships and working relationships with both men and women. Ruth writes “- I think she avoided marriage because she was intensely focused on doing something in her own life, which marriage/children would have precluded. Her parents groomed her intensively for a high society marriage, and she avoided it. Eventually her father relented and gave her a private income so she could achieve what it was she was so intent upon. The income gave her enormous freedom, which she used for the public good. I think she was extraordinary, a very special person, and a feminist way ahead of her time. She was an extraordinary role model, too. She beat a path for women, and dignified caring for other human beings in a way it had not been dignified before, and by that I do not mean by improving the social profile of nursing by 'ladies' - she despised that kind of social demarcation - whether women were good or bad nurses according to her, was nothing to do with their social origins.”

On her return from the Crimea she suffered from a long-term, at the time undiagnosed, illness. Ruth writes: "She went through periods of being well, and other periods of severe debility, when she was bed-ridden. Brucellosis causes sciatica and paralysis/collapse of the legs, it was an intracellular parasite, and a long-term infection such as she had (nowadays it can be cured with antibiotics) has manifestations in every part of the body, including the joints, eyes, organs... She was really very ill at times. The other name for the disease is undulant fever - it comes and goes. It was from bed that she carried on her research and campaigning work.

So, between periods of severe illness, she devoted herself to the investigation of the catastrophic failings of the British Army's attitudes to its own fighting men, trying to ensure that never again would a war nurse be accused (as she had been) of 'pampering the brutes'. She regarded the thousands of unnecessary deaths in the Crimea as a terrible blot on our history, and did everything she could to change the command structure so medical and surgical care for the troops would be considered as important as armaments. Similar lessons seem to have to be learned in every conflict.

Miss Nightingale also worked to improve nursing in this country, and established a nurse training school - still going today - at St Thomas's Hospital. She theorized and campaigned for the better design of hospitals, and worked to prevent overcrowding in workhouses and workhouse infirmaries. She also worked indefatigably to improve clean water supplies and sanitation in India, while the British were in control of the government there. She believed every life sacred, whatever social class the person. Many in the British ruling class were not of the same mind."

Died at home at 10 South Street W1 (photo of her shortly before death) and was buried alongside her parents at St Margaret's, East Wellow, near her parent's home, Embley Park in Hampshire. Maternal grandfather was William Smith. The annual International Nurses Day is celebrated on her birthday. There is a museum at St Thomas’ Hospital.

2017: Our text above has been corrected and improved by our friend and colleague, Ruth Richardson, who has been researching Nightingale as part of the campaign to save the Nightingale wards at the old Cleveland Street Hospital.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Florence Nightingale

Commemorated ati

Florence Nightingale Garden

{Left hand plaque:} The Nightingale badge awarded between 1925 - 1996. {Cent...

Read More

Florence Nightingale - Harley Street

Florence Nightingale left her hospital on this site for the Crimea, October 2...

Read More

Florence Nightingale - South Street

London County Council In a house on this site Florence Nightingale, 1820 - 19...

Read More

Florence Nightingale - statue

{On front of plinth:} Florence Nightingale {On left side of plinth:} Born May...

Read More

F N Hospital - renaming

This plaque, unveiled July 5th 2000, marks the official renaming and dedicati...

Read More

Show all 6

Other Subjects

Horatio Prater

Horatio Prater

Our colleague, Andrew Behan, has found someone who is probably our man, Andrew writes: I can find no evidence of an H. Prater in the Croydon area in the 1880's so I believe that the Historic Engla...

Person, Benefactor, Medicine

2 memorials
Thomas Linacre

Thomas Linacre

Born Canterbury. Studied at Oxford, Rome and Vicenza. Physician to Henry VIII. After 11 years as a doctor he became a priest, giving away his wealth to promote the study of medicine and establis...

Person, Medicine

2 memorials
Friends of the Royal London Hospital

Friends of the Royal London Hospital

Registered charity also known as 'Friends of the London Hospital (Whitechapel)' and 'League of Friends'. We're guessing that this is the current form of the 1908 "friends of the hospital" that erec...

Group, Community / Clubs, Medicine

1 memorial
Dame Ida Mann

Dame Ida Mann

Ophthalmologist. Born Ida Caroline Mann at 67 Fordwych Road, West Hampstead. She was appointed as the Ophthalmic House Surgeon at St Mary's Hospital, London, followed by an honorary staff post at M...

Person, Medicine, Australia

1 memorial
Sir William MacCormac, Bart. KCB, KCVO, MD, FRCS

Sir William MacCormac, Bart. KCB, KCVO, MD, FRCS

Notable surgeon during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Strong advocate of the antiseptic surgical methods proposed by Joseph Lister and he served in conflicts such as the Boer War. An...

Person, Emergency Services, Medicine, Politics & Administration, Ireland

1 memorial

Previously viewed

Reading Gaol

Reading Gaol

Former prison on Forbury Road in Reading. Designed by George Gilbert Scott. Its most famous inmate was Oscar Wilde, who wrote 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' whilst he was here. It housed prisoners of...

Building, Law, Property

1 memorial
PRS for Music

PRS for Music

Previously known as the Performing Rights Society. They have also erected plaques to Squeeze, Jethro Tull and Blur.

Group, Music / songs

9 memorials
LSHTM - Koch

LSHTM - Koch

WC1, Gower Street, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

This listed building was designed by Vernor Rees in 1926, one of the first steel-framed buildings ever erected. The balconies are decorat...

1 subject commemorated
Reynolds News

Reynolds News

Radical newspaper founded by George W. M. Reynolds.  Influenced the young George Lansbury.

Media, Journalism / Publishing

1 memorial
James Hutton

James Hutton

A minister in the Moravian church and the Aldersgate bookseller of John Wesley's Journal. He convened the meeting at which John Wesley's second conversion took place.

Person, Religion

1 memorial