Historical figure
The common soldier's saviour, the ideological leader of nursing reform, and a pioneering social reformer besides, Florence Nightingale (1820 - 1910) is arguably the most famous Victorian after Queen Victoria herself. She belongs to that select band of historical characters who are instantly recognisable: the Lady with the Lamp, ministering to the wounded and dying - albeit by the light of a Grecian lamp rather than the historically accurate, but less romantic, folding Turkish version - is an image permanently imprinted on the British national consciousness. As a woman, too, she is almost unique in that her fame and legend elude the normal categorisations in which women up to her time had achieved immortality: she is neither queen, nor courtesan, beauty nor artist.
'She belongs to that select band of historical characters who are instantly recognisable...'
She is a nationally sanctioned heroine. Until very recently (2002) she was the only woman, alongside the male personalities of Newton, Wellington and Dickens, whose image had ever adorned our paper currency. For nearly 20 years (between 1975 and 1993) her portrait, adapted from Barrett's painting of Nightingale at Scutari, The Mission of Mercy (now in the National Portrait Gallery, London), could be found on the £10 note. In short, as the historian Raphael Samuel once wrote, she is one of the 'stock images' of our island story.
Why then does her true significance continue to elude us? Generations have been raised on the sentimentalised story of her time as a nurse during the Crimean War, fighting the obstructive army and medical officials to ensure that the sick and wounded were nursed in civilised conditions, and with proper care. But comparatively few of us are aware of the importance of that story's sequel: of how, from her sickbed, Nightingale attempted to supervise the modernisation of nursing, together with advising governments on army reform, sanitation in Britain and India, and hospital design.
Published: 2002-07-01
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