Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Florence Nightingale
-
Standard Name: Nightingale, Florence
Birth Name: Florence Nightingale
Nickname: Flo
Nickname: The Lady-in-Chief
Nickname: The Lady of the Lamp
Nickname: Commander-in-Chief
Nickname: Wild Ass of the Wilderness
FN
's fame began when she headed nurses in the Crimean war. After the war, she worked to reform health care and promoted sanitation at home and abroad. To this end she composed speeches, government reports, statistical analyses, articles, and pamphlets. She travelled extensively in her youth, producing many letters which were later collected and published. She also wrote theology, including the work which contains her feminist fragment Cassandra. Although FN
was a versatile, political, and prolific writer (she produced over two hundred literary works during her career), she is remembered almost solely for her nursing work.
Brothers, Barbara, and Julia Gergits, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 166. Gale Research, 1996.
"Florence Nightingale" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Florence_Nightingale_%28H_Hering_NPG_x82368%29.jpg.This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.
Some sources say that PS
attended a secondary modern school in Staines (that is one with non-academic aims and expectations). But attendance at a private school is strongly implied by her poem about a girls'...
Education
Kate Marsden
KM
's decision to become a nurse was inspired by her own interests and her family's financial insecurity. In early 1877, she began to study and work at the Deaconesses' Institution and Training Hospital
at...
Family and Intimate relationships
Florence Farr
FF
's father, William Farr
, was a successful doctor, medical statistician, and reformer. He lectured and published on the subject of hygiene, which he preferred to call hygiology. Bernard Shaw
describes him as...
Family and Intimate relationships
Emma Caroline Wood
ECW
once rescued Evelyn
while he was serving in the Crimean War. He was afflicted by typhoid fever when she insisted on visiting him in a hospital. Florence Nightingale
, who ran the hospital, said...
Family and Intimate relationships
Caroline Clive
In a letter Florence Nightingale
wrote of CC
: She is now married and has two children and I never saw happiness so stamped on any human creature's face. I liked her exceedingly and admire...
Family and Intimate relationships
Arthur Hugh Clough
In 1853, AHC
married Blanche Smith
, a cousin of Florence Nightingale
.
Family and Intimate relationships
Julia Ward Howe
JWH
's second daughter, Florence
, was born, and was named after Florence Nightingale
, the remarkable young woman whom the Howes had met while on honeymoon in Europe.
Clifford, Deborah Pickman. Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. Little, Brown and Co., 1978.
86
Howe, Julia Ward. Reminiscences, 1819–1899. Houghton Mifflin, 1899.
136
Family and Intimate relationships
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Her first cousins included Florence Nightingale
, Hilary Bonham-Carter
, and the future Mrs Arthur CloughArthur Hugh Clough
. Because of their illegitimate origins, however, the Smith children were not acknowledged by the Nightingales, and BLSB
only...
Family and Intimate relationships
Eleanor Rathbone
ER
's father was the sixth William Rathbone
in a Lancashire family which was Quaker
, Unitarian
, Liberal
and philanthropic. For six generations this family had been the epitome of fair trading, plain speaking...
Friends, Associates
Ann Bridge
As a small girl AB
met Florence Nightingale
, whom she remembered as a very old lady, with a ravaged, majestically intelligent face. . . . the hand that writes these words has touched the...
From her youth FS
was accustomed to mixing with distinguished people. Sir Walter Scott
, a friend of both of her parents, found her youthful company a relief when he was old and ill. In...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Gaskell
While staying at Lea Hurst near Matlock in Derbyshire, EG
met Florence Nightingale
(who was shortly to leave for the Crimea) for the first time.
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber, 1993.
361-2
Friends, Associates
Caroline Chisholm
A meeting at the London Tavern raised £900 for CC
as a public testimonial. Among the contributors were Florence Nightingale
, the Countess of Pembroke
, and other members of the aristocracy.
Kiddle, Margaret, and Sir Douglas Copland. Caroline Chisholm. Melbourne University Press, 1957.
Uglow, Jennifer S. Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories. Faber and Faber, 1993.
219
Wedgwood, Barbara, and Hensleigh Wedgwood. The Wedgwood Circle, 1730-1897: Four Generations of a Family and Their Friends. Studio Vista, 1980.
258
Timeline
1825
Frances Parkes
(Mrs. William Parkes 1786-1842), published a highly successful domesticconduct book whose lengthy title begins Domestic Duties; or, Instructions to Young Married Ladies.
The British landed in Crimea, unopposed by the Russians they had come to make war with. They went on to lay siege to Sebastopol that October and to win important victories at Balaklava (25...
12 October 1854
W. H. Russell
began reporting in The Times on army medical service in the Crimean War, specifically on the confusion, mismanagement, and maladministration which he saw at the scene of action.
Cohen, Emmeline W. The Growth of the British Civil Service 1780-1939. Archon Books, 1965. http://U of G, http://U of G.
110
30 January 1855
Public outrage against Lord Raglan
, who commanded Britain's forces in the Crimean War, culminated in a Parliament
ary inquiry that brought down Lord Aberdeen
's government and enabled various reforms.
By mid-April 1856
Frances Margaret Taylor
published as a Lady VolunteerEastern Hospitals and English Nurses: the Narrative of Twelve Months' Experience in the Hospitals of Koulali and Scutari.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo, http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
1 August 1863
Queen Victoria
, in a letter to The Ladies of England, denounced the crinoline, calling it an indelicate, expensive, dangerous, and hideous article.
August 1863
The Times argued for the regulation for prostitutes.
The Daily News published the Ladies' Protest, a document signed by 124 women which outlined their arguments for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
1876-1878
More than six million people died from drought, famine, and disease during a major famine in India.
January 1877
A meeting between Emma Robarts
and Lady Kinnaird
resulted in the decision to merge the Prayer Circles or Unions started by the former with the Nurses' Home organized by the latter; the union became the...
May 1893
The Royal British Nurses' Association
, which added the word Royal to its name in 1891, became the first association of professional women to be granted a charter of incorporation; however, they were not granted...
5 January 1907
Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts
(who died of bronchitis on 30 December 1906) became the last person laid to rest at Westminster Abbey.
Texts
Nightingale, Florence. “A Missionary Health Officer in India”. Good Words, pp. 492 - 496; 565.
Nightingale, Florence. Cassandra and Other Selections from Suggestions for Thought. Editor Poovey, Mary, New York University Press, 1993.
Nightingale, Florence. Ever Yours, Florence Nightingale. Editors Vicinus, Martha and Bea Nergaard, Harvard University Press, 1989.
Nightingale, Florence. Ever Yours, Florence Nightingale. Editors Vicinus, Martha and Bea Nergaard, Harvard University Press, 1990.
Nightingale, Florence. Florence Nightingale in Rome. Editor Keele, Mary, American Philosophical Society, 1981.
Nightingale, Florence. Florence Nightingale to Her Nurses. Editor Nash, Rosalind, Macmillian, 1914.
Nightingale, Florence. “Health Lectures for Indian Villages”. India, Vol.
new series 4
, No. 10, pp. 305-6.
Nightingale, Florence. Health Teaching in Towns and Villages: Rural Hygiene. Spottiswoode, 1894.
Nightingale, Florence. “Hospital Statistics”. Programme of the Fourth Session of the International Statistical Congress, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1860, pp. 63-71.
Nightingale, Florence. How People May Live and Not Die in India. Emily Faithfull, 1863.
Nightingale, Florence, and William Rathbone. “Introduction”. Sketch of the History and Progress of District Nursing, Macmillan, 1890.
Poovey, Mary, and Florence Nightingale. “Introduction”. Cassandra and Other Selections from Suggestions for Thought, edited by Mary Poovey and Mary Poovey, New York University Press, 1993.
Nightingale, Florence. Introductory Notes on Lying-in Institutions. Longmans, Green, 1871.
Nightingale, Florence. “Ladies Home, 90, Harley Street”. Times, p. 6.
Nightingale, Florence. Letters From Egypt. Spottiswoode, 1854.
Nightingale, Florence. Life or Death in India. Spottiswoode, 1874.
Nightingale, Florence. Metropolitan and National Nursing Association for Providing Trained Nurses for the Sick Poor: On Trained Nursing for the Sick Poor. Cull, 1876.
Nightingale, Florence. Note on the Aboriginal Races of Australia. Emily Faithfull, 1865.
Nightingale, Florence. Note on the Supposed Protection Afforded Against Venereal Disease. Privately printed, 1863.
Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Causes of Deterioration of Race. Privately printed, 1860.
Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Hospitals. Parker, 1859.
Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army. Harrison, 1858.
Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Nursing. Harrison, 1859.
Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Nursing. D. Appleton, 1861.
Nightingale, Florence. Notes on Nursing. Cambridge University Press, 2010. http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR, http://www.cambridge.org/series/sSeries.asp?code=CLOR.