Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale (1820 – 1910) was a British nurse and statistician, called the founder of modern nursing. In 1854, during the Crimean War, she led 38 nurses to the British army hospital at Scutari and reformed its sanitation and supplies, becoming known as “the Lady with the Lamp” because she was said to go round the wards every night carrying a lamp. After returning she drove sanitary reform in the army and in hospitals with statistical graphics such as the rose diagram, and in 1860 she founded a nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
| Lived | 1820 – 1910 |
|---|---|
| Active in | Britain (London, Embley) · Scutari opposite Constantinople · the Crimea |
| Known for | “The Lady with the Lamp”; founder of modern nursing; the rose diagram |
| Game start | 1853 · age 33 · Superintendent of a nursing home in Harley Street (commoner) — A ship to Scutari |
Life at a glance
- 1820 Born on 12 May in Florence, Italy, during her parents' long journey, and named after the city.
- 1837 At sixteen she feels a call from God, and later takes nursing to be that calling.
- 1851 Against her family's opposition she trains for three months at the Deaconess Institute at Kaiserswerth in Germany.
- 1853 In August becomes superintendent of the “Institution for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen” at 1 Harley Street, London.
- 1854 At the request of Sidney Herbert, Secretary at War, she leads 38 nurses to the Barrack Hospital at Scutari, arriving in November.
- 1856 After the war ends she comes home quietly under the name “Miss Smith”.
- 1858 Publishes a report presenting the army's causes of death in rose-shaped diagrams, and becomes the first woman member of the Royal Statistical Society.
- 1860 Publishes Notes on Nursing and opens the Nightingale Training School at St Thomas' Hospital, London.
- 1907 Becomes the first woman to receive the Order of Merit.
- 1910 Dies in London on 13 August. Her family, following her wishes, decline the offer of burial in Westminster Abbey, and she is buried in the family grave at East Wellow, Hampshire.
Family
The family members who appear with this character when you start the game. Years follow the historical record; where none survives, a ? is shown.
| Relation | Name | Dates | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Father | William Edward Nightingale | 1794 – 1874 | Landowner of Embley Park |
| Mother | Fanny (Frances) Nightingale | 1788 – 1880 | Daughter of the abolitionist William Smith |
| Elder sister | Parthenope | 1819 – 1890 | Born in Naples and given the city's ancient name; later married Sir Harry Verney |
In the game
You begin in August 1853 in London as a nursing-home superintendent of thirty-three. The papers report that the Russian army has entered the Danubian Principalities, and your mother wept when she understood that hospitals, unpaid work though it is, are your calling. You have no land or title and are unmarried, but you have the £500 a year your father gives you, what you learned at Kaiserswerth, and wit.
In the first event, “1 Harley Street”, you choose whether to install pipes bringing hot water to every floor and a food lift, or to fight the committee so that Catholic and Jewish patients are admitted too. At Scutari the struggle with the purveyor who holds the storeroom keys decides the fate of the hospital and of your name, and after you come home the struggle moves to statistics and committees.
The turning point is “Sevastopol”. In real history the story goes through the four miles of the Barrack Hospital, the Lady with the Lamp, Miss Smith's homecoming after the fall of Sevastopol, the rose diagram, the nursing school, Herbert's death and the wells of India to the queen's year of 1901; if Russia holds Sevastopol, another branch opens with a letter from Tsargrad and a century without Constantinople.
- Scenario guide A ship to Scutari
- Era guide Victorian Era
- Related turning points What if Russia had won the Crimean War?
Frequently asked questions
Why is Nightingale called “the Lady with the Lamp”?
The nickname comes from a report in The Times that she went round the wards of the Scutari hospital every night with a lamp, watching over the patients. It became fixed when the American poet Longfellow celebrated the scene in his 1857 poem “Santa Filomena”.
What is Nightingale's rose diagram?
A chart showing the number of soldiers who died each month of the Crimean War, by cause, as the areas of wedge-shaped sectors; it is also called a polar area diagram. It showed at a glance that far more soldiers died of preventable disease than in battle, and became the basis for army sanitary reform.
Did Nightingale write the Nightingale Pledge herself?
No. The Nightingale Pledge was composed in her honour in 1893 at a nursing school in Detroit in the United States; it is not her own writing.
Sources
Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing (1859); the 1858 report on army sanitation; general histories of medicine and of the Victorian era.