CHAPTER XXIVLATER YEARSThe Nightingale Home—Rules for Probationers—Deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale—Death of Lady Verney—Continues to Visit Claydon—Health Crusade—Rural Hygiene—A Letter to Mothers—Introduces Village Missioners—Village Sanitation in India—The Diamond Jubilee—Balaclava Dinner.When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not the decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.—Madame de Stael.
The Nightingale Home—Rules for Probationers—Deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale—Death of Lady Verney—Continues to Visit Claydon—Health Crusade—Rural Hygiene—A Letter to Mothers—Introduces Village Missioners—Village Sanitation in India—The Diamond Jubilee—Balaclava Dinner.When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not the decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.—Madame de Stael.
The Nightingale Home—Rules for Probationers—Deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale—Death of Lady Verney—Continues to Visit Claydon—Health Crusade—Rural Hygiene—A Letter to Mothers—Introduces Village Missioners—Village Sanitation in India—The Diamond Jubilee—Balaclava Dinner.
When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not the decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.—Madame de Stael.
When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not the decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.—Madame de Stael.
Miss Nightingale’s work for the profession which her name and example had lifted into such high repute continued with unbated energy. The year 1871 brought what must have seemed like the crowning glory of her initial work when the Nightingale Home and Training School was opened as an integral portion of the new St. Thomas’s Hospital, the finest institution of its kind in Europe. This circumstance added greatly to the popularity of nursing as a profession for educated women.
Queen Victoria had laid the foundation-stone of the new hospital on May 13th, 1868, on the fine siteskirting the Thames Embankment opposite the Houses of Parliament. It was erected on the block system, which Miss Nightingale has always recommended, and she took a keen interest in all the model appliances and arrangements introduced into this truly palatial institution for the sick.
The hospital extends from the foot of Westminster Bridge along the river to Lambeth Palace, and has a frontage of 1,700 ft. It is built in eight separate blocks or pavilions. The six centre blocks are for patients, the one at the north end next Westminster Bridge is for the official staff, and the one at the south end is used for lecture rooms and a school of medicine. Each block is 125 ft. from the other, but coupled by a double corridor. The corridor fronting the river forms a delightful terrace promenade. Each block has three tiers of wards above the ground floor. The operating theatre is capable of containing six hundred students. A special wing in one of the northern blocks was set apart for the Nightingale Home and Training School for Nurses. All the arrangements of this wing were carried out in accordance with Miss Nightingale’s wishes.
The hospital contains in all one thousand distinct apartments, and the building cost half a million of money. It was opened by Queen Victoria on June 21st, 1871, andThe Timesin its account of theproceedings is lost in admiration of “the lady nurses, in their cheerful dresses of light grey [blue is the colour of the Sisters’ dresses], ladies, bright, active, and different altogether from the old type of hospital nurse whom Dickens made us shudder to read of and Miss Nightingale is helping us to abolish.” The new building gave increased accommodation and provided for forty probationers. The rules for admission remained practically the same as when the Training School was first started at the old St. Thomas’s.
At a dinner to inaugurate the opening of the new hospital, the Chairman, Sir Francis Hicks, related that Miss Nightingale had told him that she thought it “the noblest building yet erected for the good of our kind.”
But our interest centres in the Nightingale wing. The dining hall is a pleasant apartment which contains several mementoes of the lady whose name it bears. One is a unique piece of statuary enclosed in a glass case and standing on a pedestal. To the uninitiated, it might stand for a representation of a vestal virgin, but we know it to have a nobler prototype than the ideal of womanly perfection sacred to the Romans. That statuette is not the blameless priestess of Vesta, “the world forgetting, by the world forgot,” but our heroine, whom the sculptor has modelled in the character of “The Ladywith the Lamp.” She stands, a tall, slim figure, in simple nurse’s dress, holding in one hand a small lamp—such as she used when going her nightly rounds at Scutari hospital—which she is shading with the other hand. There is also a bust of Miss Nightingale in the hall, a portrait of her brother-in-law, the late Sir Harry Verney, for many years the Chairman of the Council of the Nightingale Fund, and a portrait of Mrs. Wardroper, the first head of the Nightingale Home when originally founded. There is also a clock presented by the Grand Duchess of Baden, sister of the late Emperor Frederick of Germany, who was a great admirer of Miss Nightingale’s work and herself an active organiser of relief for the sick soldiers during the Franco-German War.
The dining-hall leads into the nurses’ sitting-room. Each nurse has her own private room.
The number of probationers slightly varies from year to year, but is usually fifty-two, and there are always more applicants than can be entertained. They are divided intoSpecialprobationers, who are gentlewomen by birth and education, daughters of professional men, clergymen, officers, merchants, and others of the upper and middle classes, age from twenty-four to thirty, andOrdinaryprobationers.
TheSpecialprobationers are required to be trained to be future heads of hospitals, or of departmentsof hospitals. They learn every detail of a nurse’s work, and also the duties to fit them for responsible posts as matrons, etc. TheOrdinaryprobationers are trained to be efficient nurses, and after some years’ service may obtain superior appointments.
All nurses who have passed through St. Thomas’s are united by a special tie to Miss Nightingale, who rejoices in their successes, and likes to hear from time to time of the progress of their work in the various hospitals and institutions of which they have become heads.
Mr. Bonham Carter, her old and valued friend, remains the secretary of the Nightingale Fund, and Miss Hamilton is the matron of the hospital, and has control of the Nightingale Home.
In the same year (1871) that the new Nightingale Home and Training School was opened, Miss Nightingale published a valuable work onLying-in Hospitals, and two years later she made a new literary departure by the publication inFraser’s Magazineof two articles under the heading “Notes of Interrogation,” in which she dealt with religious doubts and problems. Miss Nightingale from her youth up has shown a deeply religious nature, and her attempt to grapple with some of the deep questions of faith, as she had thought them out in the solitude of her sick-room, merit thoughtful consideration.
Miss Nightingale has lived so entirely for thepublic good that her private family life is almost lost sight of. But her affections never ceased to twine themselves around the homes of her youth. After busy months in London occupied in literary work and the furthering of various schemes, came holidays spent at Lea Hurst and Embley with her parents, when she resumed her interest in all the old people, and ministered to the wants of the sick poor. Though no longer able to lead an active life and visit amongst the people, she had a system of inquiry by which she kept herself informed of the wants and needs of her poorer friends. She was particularly interested in the young girls of the district, and liked to have them come to Lea Hurst for an afternoon’s enjoyment as in the days gone by. It was soon known in the vicinity of her Derbyshire or Hampshire home when “Miss Florence” had arrived.
In January, 1874, Miss Nightingale sustained the first break in her old home life by the death of her father. He passed peacefully away at Embley in his eightieth year and was buried in East Willows Churchyard. His tomb bears theinscription:—
WILLIAM EDWARD NIGHTINGALE,
of Embley in this County, and of Lea Hurst,Derbyshire.Died January 5th, 1874, in his eightieth year.“And in Thy Light shall we see Light.”—Ps.xxxvi. 9.
After her father’s death, Miss Nightingale spent much of her time with her widowed mother at Embley and Lea Hurst, between which residences the winter and summer were divided as in the old days. It was well known that “Miss Florence’s” preference was for Lea Hurst, and she would linger there some seasons until the last golden leaves had fallen from the beeches in her favourite “walk” in Lea Woods.
Some of the old folks had passed away and the young ones had settled in homes of their own, but no change in the family history of the people escaped Miss Florence. She ministered through her private almoner to the wants of the sick, and bestowed her name and blessing on many of the cottage babes. By her thoughtful provision a supply of fresh, pure milk from the dairy of Lea Hurst was daily sent to those who were in special need of it. People on the estate recall that before she left in the autumn “Miss Florence” always gave directions that a load of holly and evergreens should be cut from Lea Woods and sent to the Nurses’ Home at St. Thomas’s, the District Nurses’ Home in Bloomsbury Square, and the Harley Street Home, for Christmas decoration.
CLAYDON HOUSE, THE SEAT OF SIR EDMUND VERNEY, WHERE THE “FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE” ROOMS ARE PRESERVED.(Photo by Payne, Aylesbury.)[To face p. 320.
CLAYDON HOUSE, THE SEAT OF SIR EDMUND VERNEY, WHERE THE “FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE” ROOMS ARE PRESERVED.(Photo by Payne, Aylesbury.)[To face p. 320.
CLAYDON HOUSE, THE SEAT OF SIR EDMUND VERNEY, WHERE THE “FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE” ROOMS ARE PRESERVED.
(Photo by Payne, Aylesbury.)
[To face p. 320.
On February 1st, 1880, Miss Nightingale suffered another loss in the death of her beloved mother, whose last years she had so faithfully tended as faras her strength would allow. Mrs. Nightingale, to whose beautiful character and example her famous daughter owes so much, passed away at Embley and was buried beside her husband in East Willows Churchyard. Her tomb bears theinscription:—
Devoted to the Memory of our Mother,FRANCES NIGHTINGALE,Wife of William Edward Nightingale, Esq.Died February 1st, 1880.“God is Love.”—1 Johniv. 16.“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”—Ps.ciii. 2.BY F. PARTHENOPE VERNEY AND FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
Devoted to the Memory of our Mother,FRANCES NIGHTINGALE,Wife of William Edward Nightingale, Esq.Died February 1st, 1880.
“God is Love.”—1 Johniv. 16.“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”—Ps.ciii. 2.
“God is Love.”—1 Johniv. 16.
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”—Ps.ciii. 2.
BY F. PARTHENOPE VERNEY AND FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
After the death of her mother, Miss Nightingale still occasionally stayed at Lea Hurst and Embley, which had passed to her kinsman, Mr. William Shore Nightingale, and continued her old interest in the people of the district. In 1887 the members of a working men’s club in Derbyshire presented Miss Nightingale with a painting of Lea Hurst, a gift which she received with peculiar pleasure. It was about this time that she paid her last visit to the loved home of her childhood.
Miss Nightingale’s time was now passed between her London house, 10, South Street, Park Lane, and Claydon, the beautiful home near Winslow, Buckinghamshire, of her sister, who had in 1859become the second wife of Sir Harry Verney. Sir Harry was the son of Sir Harry Calvert, Governor of Chelsea Hospital and Adjutant-General of the Forces. He had been a Major in the army, and in 1827 assumed the name of Verney. The family of Verney had been settled in Buckinghamshire since the fifteenth century. Sir Harry was at various times member of Parliament for Bedford and also Buckingham. He was deeply interested in all matters of army reform and in active sympathy with the schemes of his distinguished sister-in-law, and acted as Chairman of the Nightingale Fund.
At Claydon Miss Nightingale found a beautiful and congenial holiday retreat with Sir Harry Verney and her beloved sister, who was well known in literary and political circles; her books on social questions had the distinction of being quoted in the House of Commons. In the second year of her marriage (1861) Lady Verney had laid the foundation stone of the new Buckinghamshire Infirmary at Aylesbury, the construction of which Miss Nightingale watched with great interest during her visits to Claydon. Her bust adorns the entrance hall of the infirmary. During her summer visits to Claydon, Miss Nightingale frequently gave garden parties for the Sisters from St. Thomas’s Hospital.
Lady Verney died, after a long and painful illness,in 1890, sadly enough on May 12th, her sister’s birthday. Sir Harry Verney survived his wife barely four years, and at his death Claydon passed to Sir Edmund Hope Verney, the son of his first marriage with the daughter of Admiral Sir George Johnstone Hope.
Sir Edmund was a gallant sailor, who as a young lieutenant had served in the Crimean War and received a Crimean medal, Sebastopol clasp. He had again distinguished himself in the Indian Mutiny, was mentioned in dispatches, and received an Indian medal, Lucknow clasp. He was Liberal M.P. for North Bucks 1885–6 and 1889–91, and represented Brixton on the first London County Council. Sir Edmund married the eldest daughter of Sir John Hay-Williams and Lady Sarah, daughter of the first Earl Amherst, a lady who has taken an active part in the movement for higher education in Wales, and served for seven years on a Welsh School Board. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Welsh University. Sir Edmund has estates in Anglesey. Lady Verney is a member of the County Education Committee for Buckinghamshire. She is continuing her mother-in-law’s work of editing the “Verney Memoirs.” Sir Edmund takes great interest in education and rural questions. He is a member of the Bucks County Council and the Dairy Farmers’ Association,and has published articles on Agricultural Education and kindred subjects.
After her sister’s death Miss Nightingale continued to pass some of her time at Claydon until, in 1895, increasing infirmity made the journey impracticable, and she has continued to interest herself in the rural affairs of the district. The suite of apartments which Miss Nightingale occupied at Claydon are preserved by Sir Edmund and Lady Verney as when she occupied them, and are now styled “The Florence Nightingale Rooms.” They consist of a large, charmingly furnished sitting-room with a domed ceiling, situated at a corner of the mansion and so commanding a double view over the grounds, and a bedroom and ante-room. Miss Nightingale’s invalid couch still stands in her favourite corner of the sitting-room, and beside it is a large china bowl which loving hands once daily replenished with fresh flowers, such as our heroine loved to have about her when she occupied the room. In the adjoining apartment stands Miss Nightingale’s half-tester bedstead and old-fashioned carved wardrobe and chest of drawers. A large settee is at the foot of the bed, and was a favourite lounge with Miss Nightingale during the day. Pictures and family portraits hang on the various walls, and to these have been added by Sir Edmund Verney a series of interesting pictures culled from various sourcesto illustrate events in Miss Nightingale’s work in the East. The rooms will doubtless in time form an historic museum in Claydon House.
After her beloved sister’s death Miss Nightingale was sad and despondent, and one detects the note of weariness in a letter which she addressed in 1890 to the Manchester Police Court Mission for Lads. She was anxious that more should be done to reclaim first offenders and save them from the contaminating influences of prison life. “I have no power of following up this subject,” she wrote, “though it has interested me all my life. For the last (nearly) forty years I have been immersed in two objects, and undertaken what might well occupy twenty vigorous young people, and I am an old and overworked invalid.”
Happily Miss Nightingale’s work was not done yet. Two years later (1892) found her at the age of seventy-two starting a vigorous health crusade in Buckinghamshire in particular, and in the rural districts generally. The 1890 Act for the Better Housing of the Working Classes specially roused her attention in a subject in which she had always been interested. She had little faith in Acts of Parliament reforming the habits of the people. “On paper,” she writes, “there could not be a more perfect Health Directory [than the Act] for making oursanitaryauthorities and districts worthy of thename they bear. We have powers and definitions. Everything is provided except the two most necessary: the money to pay for and the will to carry out the reforms.” If the new Act were enforced, Miss Nightingale was of opinion that three-fourths of the rural districts in England would be depopulated and “we should have hundreds and thousands of poor upon our hands, owing to the large proportion of houses unfit for habitation in the rural districts.”
In 1892 Miss Nightingale addressed a stirring letter to the Buckinghamshire County Council on the advisability of appointing a Sanitary Committee to deal with the health questions of the district. “We must create a public opinion which will drive the Government,” she wrote, “instead of the Government having to drive us—an enlightened public opinion, wise in principles, wise in details. We hail the County Council as being or becoming one of the strongest engines in our favour, at once fathering and obeying the great impulse for national health against national and local disease. For we have learned that we have national health in our hands—local sanitation, national health. But we have to contend against centuries of superstition and generations of indifference. Let the County Council take the lead.”
Miss Nightingale believed that the best methodfor promoting sanitary reform among the people was to influence the women—the wives and mothers who had control of the domestic management of the homes. Her next step was, with the aid of the County Council Technical Instruction Committee, to arrange for a missioner to teach in the rural districts of Buckinghamshire. She selected three specially trained and educated women, who were not only to give addresses in village schoolrooms on such matters as disinfection, personal cleanliness, ventilation, drainage, whitewashing, but were to visit the homes of the poor and give friendly instruction and advice to the women.
She knew, and respected the feeling, that an Englishman regards his home, however humble, as a castle into which no one may enter uninvited. Miss Nightingale had no sympathy with the class of “visiting ladies” who lift the latch of a poor person’s cottage and walk in without knocking. In launching her scheme of visitation she did the courteous thing by writing a circular letter to the village mothers, asking them to receive the missioners. The letterruns:—
“Dear Hard-working Friends,“I am a hard-working woman too. May I speak to you? And will you excuse me, though not a mother?“You feel with me that every mother who brings a child into the world has the duty laid upon her of bringing up the child in such health as will enable him to do the work of his life.“But though you toil all day for your children, and are so devoted to them, this is not at all an easy task.“We should not attempt to practise dress-making or any other trade without any training for it; but it is generally impossible for a woman to get any teaching about the management of health; yet health is to be learnt....“Boys and girls must grow up healthy, with clean minds, clean bodies, and clean skins. And for this to be possible, the air, the earth, and the water that they grow up in and have around them must be clean. Fresh air, not bad air; clean earth, not foul earth; pure water, not dirty water; and the first teachings and impressions that they have at home must all be pure, and gentle, and firm. It ishomethat teaches the child, after all, more than any other schooling. A child learns before it is three whether it shall obey its mother or not; and before it is seven, wise men tell us that its character is formed.“There is, too, another thing—orderliness. We know your daily toil and love. May not the busiest and hardest life be somewhat lightened,the day mapped out, so that each duty has the same hours? It is worth while to try to keep the family in health, to prevent the sorrow, the anxiety, the trouble of illness in the house, of which so much can be prevented.“When a child has lost its health, how often the mother says, ‘Oh, if I had only known! but there was no one to tell me.’ And, after all, it is health and not sickness that is our natural state—the state that God intends for us. There are more people to pick us up when we fall than to enable us to stand upon our feet. God did not intend all mothers to be accompanied by doctors, but He meant all children to be cared for by mothers. God bless your work and labour of love.“Florence Nightingale.”
“Dear Hard-working Friends,
“I am a hard-working woman too. May I speak to you? And will you excuse me, though not a mother?
“You feel with me that every mother who brings a child into the world has the duty laid upon her of bringing up the child in such health as will enable him to do the work of his life.
“But though you toil all day for your children, and are so devoted to them, this is not at all an easy task.
“We should not attempt to practise dress-making or any other trade without any training for it; but it is generally impossible for a woman to get any teaching about the management of health; yet health is to be learnt....
“Boys and girls must grow up healthy, with clean minds, clean bodies, and clean skins. And for this to be possible, the air, the earth, and the water that they grow up in and have around them must be clean. Fresh air, not bad air; clean earth, not foul earth; pure water, not dirty water; and the first teachings and impressions that they have at home must all be pure, and gentle, and firm. It ishomethat teaches the child, after all, more than any other schooling. A child learns before it is three whether it shall obey its mother or not; and before it is seven, wise men tell us that its character is formed.
“There is, too, another thing—orderliness. We know your daily toil and love. May not the busiest and hardest life be somewhat lightened,the day mapped out, so that each duty has the same hours? It is worth while to try to keep the family in health, to prevent the sorrow, the anxiety, the trouble of illness in the house, of which so much can be prevented.
“When a child has lost its health, how often the mother says, ‘Oh, if I had only known! but there was no one to tell me.’ And, after all, it is health and not sickness that is our natural state—the state that God intends for us. There are more people to pick us up when we fall than to enable us to stand upon our feet. God did not intend all mothers to be accompanied by doctors, but He meant all children to be cared for by mothers. God bless your work and labour of love.
“Florence Nightingale.”
Still following up the subject of rural sanitation, Miss Nightingale prepared a paper on “Rural Hygiene: Health Teachings in Towns and Villages,” which was read at the Conference of Women Workers at Leeds in November, 1893. It was written in her usual clear and incisive manner, going straight to the root of the matter and illustrating her points with humorous illustrations. “What can be done for the health of thehome,” she asks, “without the women of the home?... Let not England lag behind. It is a truism to say thatthe women who teach in India must know the languages, the religions, superstitions, and customs of the women to be taught in India. It ought to be a truism to say the very same for England.” Referring to the village mothers, she says, “We must not talktothem, oratthem, butwiththem.”
As an instance of the happy-go-lucky style in which sick cottagers are occasionally treated, Miss Nightingale relates the following amusingstories:—
“A cottage mother, not so very poor, fell into the fire in a fit while she was preparing breakfast, and was badly burnt. We sent for the nearest doctor, who came at once, bringing his medicaments in his gig. The husband ran for the horse-doctor, who did not come, but sent an ointment for a horse. The wise woman of the village came of her own accord, and gave another ointment.
“‘Well, Mrs. Y.,’ said the lady who sent for the doctor, ‘and what did you do?’
“‘Well, you know, miss, I studied a bit, and then I mixed all three together, because then, you know, I was sure I got the right one.’
“The consequences to the poor woman may be imagined!
“Another poor woman, in a different county, took something which had been sent to her husband for a bad leg, believing herself to have fever. ‘Well, miss,’ she said, ‘it did me a sight of good,and look at me, baint I quite peart?’ The ‘peartness’ ended in fever.”
The manners of the women to their children in many cases are greatly in need of reform, and Miss Nightingale quotes the injunction of an affectionate mother to her child about going to school, “I’ll bang your brains out if you don’t do itvoluntally.”
Miss Nightingale deals in her paper with the need for drastic measures to promote rural sanitation such as drainage, proper water supply, scavenging, removal of dust and manure heaps from close proximity to the houses, and the inspection of dairies and cowsheds. In regard to the latter she writes, “No inspection exists worthy of the name.” This was in 1893, and the alarming facts about the non-inspection of rural milk supplies exposed inThe Daily Chroniclein 1904 show that matters are little improved since Miss Nightingale laid an unerring finger on the defect eleven years ago.
In addition to an independent medical officer and sanitary inspector under him, “we want,” said Miss Nightingale, “a fully trained nurse for every district and a health missioner,” and she defines her idea of the duties of a missioner. These women must of course be highly qualified for their work. They should visit the homes of the people to advocate rules of health. Persuade the careful housewife, who is afraid of dirt falling on to herclean grate, to remove the sack stuffed up the unused chimney, teach the cottagers to open their windows in the most effective way for free ventilation. “It is far more difficult to get people to avoid poisoned air than poisoned water,” says Miss Nightingale, “for they drink in poisoned air all night in their bedrooms.” The mothers should be taught the value of a daily bath, the way to select nourishing food for their families, what to do till the doctor comes and after he has left.
However, the first great step for the missioner is to get the trust and friendship of the women. And this “is not made by lecturing upon bedrooms, sculleries, sties, and wells in general, but by examination of particular rooms, etc.” The missioner, above all, must not appear to “pry” into the homes, or to talk down to the women, neither should she give alms. The whole object of the recommendations was to teach people how to avoid sickness and poverty.
Miss Nightingale’s efforts to promote sanitary reforms were not confined to our own land, but extended to far-away India, a country in which she has, as we have already seen, taken a great interest. She had watched the success of some of the sanitary schemes carried out by the municipalities of large towns of India with satisfaction, but there yet remained the vast rural population forwhich little was done, a very serious matter indeed when we consider that ninety per cent. of the two hundred and forty millions of India dwell in small rural villages. Miss Nightingale prepared one of her “searchlight” papers on “Village Sanitation in India,” which was read before the Tropical Section of the eighth International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, held at Buda Pesth in September, 1894.
In this she considers the condition of the rural provinces of India from facts obtained by correspondence with people of authority on the spot, and deals with the defective sewage, water supply, and the difficulties arising from the insanitary habits of the people and their attachment to old customs. “Still,” she pleads, “with a gentle and affectionate people like the Hindoos much may be accomplished by personal influence. I can give a striking instance within my own knowledge. In the Bombay Presidency there was a village which had for long years been decimated by cholera. The Government had in vain been trying to ‘move’ the village. ‘No,’ they said, ‘they would not go; they had been there since the time of the Mahrattas: it was a sacred spot, and they would not move now.’
“At last, not long ago, a sanitary commissioner—dead now alas!—who by wise sympathy, practicalknowledge and skill had conquered the confidence of the people, went to the Pancháyat, explained to them the case, and urged them to move to a spot which he pointed out to them as safe and accessible. By the very next morning it had all been settled as he advised.
“The Government of India is very powerful, and great things may be accomplished by official authority, but in such delicate matters affecting the homes and customs of a very conservative people almost more may be done by personal influence exercised with kindly sympathy and respect for the prejudices of others.”
The celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 was an occasion of great interest to Miss Nightingale, and in her sick-room she followed all the events of that joyous time with keen appreciation. She was delighted at the idea of making a special feature of “Nursing” in the Women’s Section of the Victorian Era Exhibition, and sent her Crimean carriage as an exhibit. All visitors to Earl’s Court will recall the throngs of sight-seers who stood all day long peering into the recesses of the old vehicle as eagerly as though they expected to still find some remnant of the wounded. There was no more popular exhibit on view, while the smiling nurses in their becoming uniforms who flitted about the Nursing Sectionwere a living testimony to the revolution in the art of nursing which Florence Nightingale had effected. Lady George Hamilton, who had charge of this section, was in frequent consultation with Miss Nightingale while preparations were going forward.
One of the most interesting celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee year was the dinner of the Balaclava Society on the anniversary of the famous “Charge,” October 25th. After the loyal toasts, the health of Miss Nightingale was proposed by Mr. F. H. Roberts, who amid ringing cheers said, “Her name will live in the annals of England’s regiments as long as England lasts.” The company numbered one hundred and twenty, of whom sixty were survivors of the Charge.
RECENT SPECIMEN OF MISS NIGHTINGALE’S HANDWRITING.
RECENT SPECIMEN OF MISS NIGHTINGALE’S HANDWRITING.
Miss Nightingale has continued to take an interest in the Hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen atHarley Street, where she worked so assiduously before going to the Crimea.
This most useful institution continues its efforts for the relief of sick ladies with unabated vigour, under the able Lady Superintendent, Miss Tidy, who has laboured at her post now for fourteen years. The home looks so bright and cheerful that it must have a very beneficial effect on the minds of those suffering women who seek its shelter. In the pretty reception-room stands the old-fashioned mahogany escritoire which Miss Nightingale used more than fifty years ago, when she voluntarily performed the drudgery of superintending the home. It was at this house in Harley Street that she stayed while organising her nursing band for the Crimea, and from it she set forth for her journey to the East.
MISS NIGHTINGALE’S OLD ROOM AT CLAYDON.(Photo by Payne, Aylesbury.)[To face p. 336.
MISS NIGHTINGALE’S OLD ROOM AT CLAYDON.(Photo by Payne, Aylesbury.)[To face p. 336.
MISS NIGHTINGALE’S OLD ROOM AT CLAYDON.
(Photo by Payne, Aylesbury.)
[To face p. 336.
In April, 1902, Margaret, Lady Verney laid the foundation stone of a new public library and village hall at Steeple Claydon. The cost of £1,500 was defrayed by Sir Edmund Verney. Miss Nightingale was much interested in the project and sent the following message to Sir Edmund and LadyVerney:—
“So glad the foundation stone is being laid of the Steeple Claydon Public Library. I do with all my heart wish it success, and think a publiclibrary is good for body and soul. That God’s blessing may rest upon it is the fervent wish of“Florence Nightingale.”
“So glad the foundation stone is being laid of the Steeple Claydon Public Library. I do with all my heart wish it success, and think a publiclibrary is good for body and soul. That God’s blessing may rest upon it is the fervent wish of
“Florence Nightingale.”
Miss Nightingale also sent £50 for the purchase of books for the library.
The institution of the Royal Pension Fund for Nurses, in which Queen Alexandra has taken such an active interest, was a subject of satisfaction to Miss Nightingale, as helping to improve the position of the sisterhood which she has so much at heart. She was deeply interested in hearing accounts of the garden-parties given by the Queen, as Princess of Wales, to the nurses in the grounds of Marlborough House, and also of the reception of the nurses by the Queen after the King’s accession.