Florence Nightingale, The Lady of the Lamp

By her unceasing care of the wounded and sick in the English camps at Crimea, Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) became known as the ‘Lady of the Lamp’. Back in England, she published her reform measures in Notes on Hospitals (1859) and Notes on Nursing (1859), and in 1860 established a school for nurses at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. With her friend Elizabeth Gaskell, Nightingale endeavoured to improve the social and economic situation of those less fortunate in Britain. She knew Dickens, and distributed his books to nurses and soldiers. She also worked with him on the Committee of the Association for Improving Workhouse Infirmaries.

[Copy of a painting of Florence Nightingale, ‘The Lady of the Lamp’.]