The Life and Times of Florence Nightingale.

In Daughter of England, the characters of Caroline Winther, Eric Carrywith, Dr. Morris, and Sister Agatha are of course purely fictional, but many of the people we met, like Florence Nightingale and Dr. Sutherland, or who were mentioned, such as John Hall and Lord Palmerston, were in fact real people of history. This is one of the beauties of Historical Fiction, weaving a story with fictional and real characters so intertwined, you make it seem like they all really existed.

Of course in reality there was no Caroline Winther who went to Scutari to be a nurse at the Barrack Hospital. Ahe an embodiment of the thirty eight young ladies who bravely left with Florence Nightingale to try and help the wounded and dying.

Florence Nightingale was born on the 12th of May, 1820. Her parents, William and Frances Nightingale were well to do, upper class people with good connections and a good name in society. Florence was well educated as a child, mainly by her father, and had all the comforts of a rich young girl in 19th century England. From a young age Florence felt that God was calling her to be a nurse and dedicating her life to serving others, her family did not approve of this idea. By the middle of the 19th century the idea of a working woman was nothing new. There were many occupations a girl could choose from, such as a schoolteacher, seamstress, hat maker, and of course scores of women worked in the many factories that had opened thanks to the industrial revolution.

However, these were all girls of the working class. Young ladies of the upper class and aristocracy were not expected to take on themselves any profession or work at any job. Young women of fashion were to spend their time perfecting their skills of drawing, dancing, singing, foreign languages and deportment in the hopes of catching a good husband. Once you were married, you became the mistress of a household, which meant you were to oversee all the workings of the house. What food was to be cooked, what needed to be bought, made sure the house was always in good order, and that the garden was tended to. Of course most women didn't do any of the actual work, there was the housekeeper and maids took care of everything, the mistress just did the overseeing and gave commands. Because of this, many girls, especially the ones who weren't married yet, had very little to do with their life, and as Florence Nightingale would later write, this boredom often led to idleness and laziness.  

For a long time Florence respected her family's disapproval of her calling, but in 1844 she told them that she planned to become a nurse. Even though her mother and older sister worked hard to stop her, Florence did not give up. She rebelled against the proper behavior of a young lady in society, and worked very hard in educating herself in the field of nursing. Mr. Nightingale was a little more supportive of his daughter's decision and paid her a hefty allowance, allowing her to live comfortably and pursue her calling.

Despite having good looks, Florence rejected many suitors, believing that marriage would distract her from her calling. Of course her most famous rejection was that of Richard Milnes, 1st Baron of Houghton, who had courted her for nine years.

Florence toured Europe in 1853-1845, studying in various places and at last, in 1854, at the age of 33 she became superintendent at a hospital for retired governesses.

Florence Nightingale is of course most famous for her work in the Crimean War that took place from March 1854 to May 1856.

The reports of the terrible conditions in the hospital at Scutari were making the general public very unhappy. Florence wrote a letter to the wife of Sydney Herbert, who was then Secretary of War, asking if perhaps she could be of some assistance. At the same time, Sydney Herbert, who was a good friend of Florence, wrote her a letter asking her to help. An interesting fact is that the letters actually crossed in the mail.

In November 1854, Florence with a staff of 38 nurses arrived at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari. The conditions there were disorganized, the medical staff was severely overworked and many men were unattended. Most of the soldiers didn't even have battle wounds, but were suffering from diseases such as cholera and dysentery. More inspection of the barracks produced around 200 women, many of whom were actually prostitutes, all of whom also had cholera. Lots of soldiers had their families there as well, so it was this big melting pot of men, women, children, pests, and disease.

Florence set about to try and bring order to the place, she organized a diet kitchen and a laundry and tried to find work and recreation for the families of the soldiers who were also residing in the hospital. She faced indifference from the medical staff, and often clashed in opinion with Sir John Hall, who was in charge of the hospital. A veteran army doctor, Mr. Hall was greatly annoyed the meddlesome Miss Nightingale and often complained of her behavior in his letters.

Florence had a heart of pity for the soldiers and everything she did, she did to try and help them, but at that point she did not understand then that the real cause of the increasing death rate was the unsanitary conditions of the hospital, and the horrible drainage and sewage problems. The first winter she was in the hospital, over 4000 soldiers died, mainly from cholera and dysentery, and Florence was sure that the deaths were being caused by bad food, uncomfortable conditions and overworking of the staff.

She did, however, write many letters to the government, pleading for help. In March 1855 the government sent a sanitary commission, headed by Dr. John Sutherland, who was a good friend of Florence's and they flushed out all the drains and cleared out the sewage. The death rates reduced drastically after that. Many people these days are critising Florence's importance in the barracks hospital and saying she did more harm than good and her hospital had the highest death rates. This is quite untrue. One must remember that the hospital was a very rowdy place, filled with soldiers and prostitutes and other random people. Trying to organize anything in an already disorganize place was difficult, and Florence was but one woman. Many of her staff weren't trained professionally and they had to learn as they went. In an attempt to keep her nurses from becoming like the prostitutes, Florence made a rule that after eight in the evening, no nurses were allowed in the wards and the care of the wounded was passed to the orderlies. She herself would walk through four miles of bed every night, making sure the soldiers were comfortable. It was thanks to these nighttime walks that she became known as the lady with the lamp. And while it is true that she is not the direct cause of the conditions improving, she did help greatly to help bring about the changes, even if it was only by badgering officials to step in and do something.

In the spring of 1855, Florence traveled to the war hospitals at Balaclava, it was there she contracted Crimean Fever and was very ill for twelve days.  She never fully recover from the fever and it would leave her an invalid for the rest of her life. After Florence was better, she returned to Scutari and continued her work of overseeing her nurses and helping the wounded. She didn't remain for long, however, and in 1856 she returned to Balaclava, where she remained till the end of the war.

In the summer of 1856 the war was over and the hospitals were empty. Florence was ill and tired and set sail for her native England. Although she was a hero in her country, she quietly boarded a French ship and slipped to her home at Lea Hurst unnoticed.

After the war, Florence Nightingale, along with Dr. Sutherland, began making a detailed report of conditions at the hospital. It was here that Florence came to the realization of why so many soldiers had been dying. Thanks to her research, she was able to better understand the necessity of keeping conditions sanitary in a hospital, and this led her to push about reforms in the world of medicine and the field nursing.

Queen Victoria awarded Florence Nightingale with 45,000 pounds, and with this money Florence laid the foundation of the Nightingale Training School at St. Thomas' hospital.

When Indian Rebellion broke, Florence right away asked if her assistance would be needed. While it was not, she still took great interest in the conditions of the hospitals in India and set about to reform the medical conditions there as well. For the remainder of her life, Florence would do her best to improve hospital conditions, and make nursing an honorable profession. Thanks to a lot of her effort, the ideas of women working became more acceptable and respected.

Florence Nightingale died in her home in 1910, at the age of 90. Throughout her life she not only laid out the foundation of modern nursing, but also helped changed the attitude of society towards women and fought for social reform and improving the conditions of the less fortunate. The Nightingale Pledge is still taken by nurses this day. (Though of course it has been modified over the centuries.)

Mary Seacole.

When studying about Florence Nightingale, the name of Mary Seacole will often come up. Most everyone will say that she was a nurse and the real hero of the Crimean War while Florence Nightingale was a good for nothing person. Again, saying like these merely come from ignorance.

Mary Seacole was half Jamaican, half Scottish. The popular story goes that Mary was wanted to be a nurse and Florence refused to take her because Mary was black. This is untrue. When Mary applied to the War Fund to go to Scutari, Florence was already in the barracks hospital and didn't know anything about it. At that time government was organizing another host of nurses to take and reason why they didn't take Mary Seacole was because she was considered a little too old (she was nearing fifty already). Mary really wanted to help however, so she set out for Scutari on her own, planning to start a hotel for the officers in Scutari. She arrived at the Barrack Hospital in and asked Florence is she could stay the night. Whatever other people may say, Mary in her memoir actually has a very positive view of Florence and wrote that Florence was very kind to her, put her up for the night and gave her breakfast the next day.

Mary Seacole founded a hotel and would serve hot meals to the officers and soldiers. She was not a nurse, and in her own memoir she wrote that the closest she ever got to nursing was serving lemonade and tea to the wounded men. This does not mean her work was not important or that I fail to realize her significance. Many of the officers found comfort in her hotel and it became a very popular place to go to. The only reason why I didn't put Mary Seacole into this story was because I didn't quite know where to stick her in, as she was only in the barracks hospital for one night. This does not mean I don't know about her or don't appreciate her, butI can't stick everyone who was involved in the Crimean War in an 8 chapter story, if you follow me.

Both Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole worked hard in their own way to help the men, and it is not like one is better than the next, each had their job and each did it to the best of their abilities. I personally think instead of people arguing who was better or more important, we accept these two remarkable woman for who they were and follow their example to try and do what we can, in whatever way we are called, to make the world around us a better place. And as for glory or recognition, that is something we should leave to God. The praise of men is actually fickle, here today and gone tomorrow, but God sees all and will reward accordingly, be it in this life or the next.

Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. 

Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 

But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 

That your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly--Matthew 6:1-4 (NKJV)