Detailing the stages of her life
Monday 15 September 2025
An easy Tube ride from Hampstead to Waterloo Station and a short walk took us to the Florence Nightingale Museum on the campus of St Thomas Hospital for another Heritage Open Days opportunity today. This museum opened in 1989 on the site of the St Thomas School of Nursing. It does an excellent job of telling the story of how Florence who was born to an English family of some means refused to live up to the expectations of women of her class which was to make a good marriage and to raise a family. Instead this intelligent young woman sensed a calling to help the poor and despite her family’s objections chose nursing as her life’s work. She was 33 years old and a superintendent at a hospital for gentlewomen on Harley Street when the British Minister of War invited her to organize a contingent of female nurses to staff a military hospital in Turkey caring for British Soldiers during the Crimean War. Her efforts particularly in improving the nutrition, infection control, and general comfort for the soldiers significantly reduced mortality. Due to reports in the press of her success Florence returned home to England a heroine and was given a reward of a brooch from Queen Victoria. Not only that but she received a sizable financial gift from the British government which she used along with other donations to establish the Nightingale Home and Training School for Nurses at St Thomas Hospital, the first modern nurse training school in history in 1860, the same year she published Notes on Nursing, the classical historical nursing textbook. Everyone who has every received care from a nurse owes a huge debt of gratitude to this extraordinary “Lady of the Lamp.”
Never knew these interesting details. Thanks.
Neither did we. It’s a fascinating story of an amazing woman who had a tremendous impact on our world.