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NIGHTINGALE, PUBLIC HEALTH AND VICTORIAN SOCIETY
from the British Library, London

Part 3: Writings on Nursing, India, Religion, Philosophy and other subjects with correspondence regarding the Nightingale Fund

“Microfilm publication of Florence Nightingale’s original letters is good news for scholars. It will make available a substantial portion of the best collection in the world, that of the British Library … no other archive covers the full range of Nightingale’s interests remotely as well as does the British Library: philosophy, politics, religion, public health, nursing, war, India, statistics and women.”

 

Dr Lynn McDonald
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph

Editor of “The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale”

 

From an early age Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) knew that her life was to be dedicated to nursing and the welfare of the sick. At the age of sixteen she experienced a ‘call to service’, but nursing was at that time a low-class ill-paid occupation and Nightingale’s family would not permit her to take up her calling. Her determination eventually won through when she was given permission to lead a group of nurses to the Crimea to care for the sick and wounded soldiers. Reports of Nightingale’s ceaseless work reached the public’s attention and admiration, and on her return home in 1856 Nightingale was feted by Victorian society as a heroine. Nightingale intensely disliked her status as heroine but she found it was to prove useful in getting attention and support for her work, and through an impressive network of politicians, government officials, and journalists she was able to effect pioneering nursing and hospital reform. Nightingale’s concern was for all classes of society: for the poor sick in the workhouses, the ordinary soldier in military hospital, as well as those in civil hospitals. Today Nightingale is remembered as the major founder of the modern nursing profession, and for her contribution to a public healthcare system based on health promotion and disease prevention.

The microfilm series, Nightingale, Public Health and Victorian Society details the life and work of Florence Nightingale and is sourced from the British Library. Our Consultant Editor for this series, Dr Lynn McDonald describes this collection as, ‘the largest and most diverse collection or original material by Florence Nightingale in the world’. The archive features Nightingale’s letters, papers, manuscripts and books. Nightingale wrote letters almost every day of her life and for many of the original letters there are also the drafts and copies of her correspondence.

Part 1 of the series covers the Crimea, India and public health reform and features the correspondence of key figures including Sidney and Elizabeth Herbert and Lord Panmure, as well as close friends, Crimea nurses and Queen Victoria and letters concerning the Franco-Prussian War. Also included is the correspondence of leading figures in public health reform and military nursing, experts and sanitary reformers of India, viceroys of India and governors of India presidencies.

Part 2 provides a substantial collection of family correspondence and letters to close friends such as Benjamin Jowett, Harriet Martineau, J S Mill and Richard Monckton Milnes, her former suitor, and covers personal matters, philosophy and religious faith, as well as Nightingale’s views on women’s rights and the vote. The collection also includes Nightingale’s general correspondence and incoming letters (some with replies) and includes anxious letters from young ladies wanting to become nurses.

This third part focuses on the writings and statistical research of Nightingale with informative drafts of both published and unpublished articles, notes and memoranda covering her papers, articles, books and government reports. We include Nightingale’s writings on civilian and military nursing, India, her religious beliefs and philosophy, as well as some of her personal journals. We also include the fifteen volumes of correspondence between Nightingale and her cousin, Henry Bonham Carter, concerning the Nightingale Fund from 1861 to 1902.

Nightingale’s technical writings on nursing and hospital reform were carefully researched by her using statistical information from government reports and questionnaires, and by interviewing experts. As a result, her writings were respected by her contemporaries who knew that she had done her homework, and in this way Nightingale was able to get support from high-level medical experts, cabinet ministers and other senior officials. The respected Victorian sanitarian, John Sutherland, the statistician William Farr at the General Register Office, and the engineer and water expert, Robert Rawlinson were some of those who helped Nightingale with advice and statistical data and information. There were people who shared Nightingale’s vision for an improved healthcare system.

Among Nightingale’s writings on nursing and hospital reform we include her manuscript notes and drafts for Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes and Notes on Lying-In Institutions, both pioneering studies; notes relating to civilian hospitals in the British Isles and Canada; and statistical diagrams and plans of hospitals. Nightingale was a long-serving member of the War Office and she never lost her commitment to improving the quality of life for the ordinary soldier. Material on army medicine includes drafts for Notes on Matters affecting the Health of the British Army published in 1858, and papers relating to the Army Sanitary Commission (1857), War Office Re-Organisation (1861-1862), military hospitals and nursing (1855-1883), and the Army Hospitals’ Services Inquiry Committee and Egyptian Campaign (1882-1885).

Nightingale’s work on India has been little written about, only the first full-length book on the subject was published in 2004 and there are few scholarly articles on it. Nightingale worked on India for more than forty years and during this time she instigated a royal commission on India and promoted broad terms of reference for public health. Much of her work during this period went unnoticed, for example her talks with officials, governors and viceroys as well as those Indian nationals committed to health reform. Her papers also reveal a change in her tactics and she began approaching local areas and local institutions, instead of tackling problems from the top. We include: papers relating to the Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army in India; drafts of articles on Indian sanitation, land tenure, and education (1865-1879, 1882-1891); drafts of her unpublished work, ‘the Zemindar, the Sun and the Watering Pot as Affecting Life or Death in India’; accounts by Nightingale of interviews with experts on Indian affairs (1877-1898) and reminiscences by Nightingale of her work with successive Viceroys and Secretaries of State (1897).

In addition to her technical work Nightingale also wrote on religion and philosophy, and we include notes and drafts of Suggestions for Thoughts to the Searchers after Truth among the Artizans of England (3 vols) which was privately printed in 1860, and contains marginal notes by J S Mill. There are also drafts of the unpublished, ‘Notes from Devotional Authors of [the] Middle Ages, collected, chosen, and freely translated by Florence Nightingale’ (1872-1874); notes prepared for The School Children’s Bible published in 1873; and essays on religion and philosophy, several of which were submitted to Benjamin Jowett (1870-1872). Nightingale’s private and domestic life are recorded in her diaries for 1850 and 1877; a Commonplace Book for 1836; and Household Book for the period July 1888-February 1889.

The Nightingale Fund was set up from donations received from the general public as an expression of gratitude to Nightingale for her nursing care for the sick and wounded in the Crimea. Nightingale’s cousin and friend from childhood, Henry Bonham Carter, who was also a close work colleague for many years, was the secretary of the fund. The correspondence of the Nightingale Fund covers the period from 1861-1902 and contains the letters of Nightingale with Henry Bonham Carter. The fund provided for much pioneering nursing and hospital reform work.

Part 4 details Nightingale’s correspondence with nursing staff and her papers relating to St Thomas’s Hospital, hospitals throughout Britain and around the world. The papers illustrate Nightingale’s influence through the women that she advised. We also include correspondence with the philanthropist, William Rathbone, and Agnes Jones, nursing superintendent , concerning Nightingale’s nursing reform in the workhouses.

This microfilm series featuring the manuscripts of Florence Nightingale held at the British Library provides a resource of great value to those researching nursing, public health, social reform, religion and philosophy in the Victorian period, as well as much important information on India and the Crimea.



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