Nightingale, Florence

Nightingale, Florence (1820-1910), British nurse, b. Florence, Italy.

Florence Nightingale was the daughter of rich parents. In her day, ladies like her were not expected to work and so when she said she wanted to be a nurse her parents would not agree.

But, at the age of thirty, Florence went first to Paris and then to a hospital in Germany to learn nursing. Then she became the matron in charge of a hospital in Harley Street, London.

In 1854, Britain joined in the Crimean War (1853-56) against Russia and soon newspaper reports were describing the sufferings of wounded soldiers in the makeshift hospitals. Miss Nightingale offered to go out and look after these soldiers and in October 1854, she left England with a party of thirty-eight nurses. The nurses improved the dirty, neglected hospital at Scutari, Turkey, and saved countless lives.

Florence, moving among the wounded men at night with her lantern, became known affectionately as the 'Lady with a Lamp'. Before the war ended, she was placed in charge of all the British hospitals in the Crimea.

Back in England after the war, she wrote an 800 page report on hospitals for soldiers. In the Crimea, she had had a severe illness and afterwards was never completely well. But she spent the rest of her life working to make hospitals better and lived to be ninety.

She was the first woman to receive the Order of Merit. There is a statue of Florence Nightingale in Waterloo Place, London.

See Gillian Gill Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale