NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 NIGHTINGALE, PUBLIC HEALTH AND VICTORIAN SOCIETY From the British Library, London Part 1: Correspondence Relating to the Crimea, India and Public Health Reform Part 2: Family Letters and Correspondence with Clough, Jowett, Martineau, Mill and others Part 3: Writings on Nursing, India, Religion, Philosophy and other subjects with correspondence regarding the Nightingale Fund Part 4: Correspondence with Nursing Staff and Papers Relating to St Thomas's Hospital and other subjects Contents listing EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION PUBLISHER'S NOTE CONTENTS OF REELS - PART 1 CONTENTS OF REELS - PART 2 CONTENTS OF REELS - PART 3 CONTENTS OF REELS - PART 4 DETAILED LISTING - PARTS 1-4 (PDF document 291 pages)

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 Editorial Introduction by Dr Lynn McDonald, Consultant Editor The British Library holds the largest and most diverse collection of original material written by Florence Nightingale in the world. A Nightingale scholar who could visit only one archive would surely choose this one, although there are some 200 worldwide with original material, and two others in London of substantial size. It is probably the most used archive for Nightingale research, but is still amazingly under-utilized, and whole sections of it have escaped the attention of scholars. Microfilm publication by Adam Matthew Publications Ltd. will make this superb collection (a very large portion of it to be precise) readily available to scholars. It is hardly a moment too soon. Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) is still a well known person, recognized as a war heroine and the major founder of the modern profession of nursing. There is an enormous and growing literature on her as scholars in many countries and with diverse interests continue to find her intriguing and even inspiring. But her reputation has been sullied as heroines in general have fallen from favour and her own profession of nursing has largely lost interest in its history. Attacks on Nightingale have become frequent, while speculations as to her illness have grown wilder and wilder. All this scholarly work has been overwhelmingly based on secondary sources (which quote each other and hence get worse every year). The availability of original sources will only foster better research on Nightingale. The Adam Matthew microfilm publication occurs at the same time as the publication of the Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, 16 volumes in print, eventually with full electronic publication of the transcribed texts and related data bases. (I am the director of this project, working with a team of scholars; the publisher is Wilfrid Laurier University Press. For information on the project see our website: www.sociology.uoguelph.ca/fnightingale; for the press: www.press@wlu.ca) The two endeavours are complementary, for the edited works stimulate scholarly attention and fussy scholars want to see the original letters (which we do not publish--we publish transcriptions). The Collected Works, while focused on Nightingale, is producing material on a good range of important 19th century people, from Queen Victoria, General Gordon, J.S. Mill, W.E. Gladstone, public health and India experts, among others. Scholars in a diverse range of fields might also profit from the microfilm production. Background to the Collection The British Librarys wonderful collection almost never happened. Nightingales will of July 1896 expressly stipulated the destruction of all my letters papers and manuscripts (with the exception of the papers relating to India and the other exception hereinbefore contained)...also that the pencil notes in the pages of any religious books may be destroyed together with the books. She subsequently relented, in 1901 revoking that clause, to bequeath the letters, papers, manuscripts and books which I thereby requested might be destroyed and the majority of which I believe should be destroyed to her much esteemed cousin, Henry Bonham Carter, a friend from childhood, later secretary of the Nightingale Fund Council and a close colleague for decades of work. Henry Bonham Carter, mercifully for Nightingale researchers, took quite a different view. The massive amount of surviving materials was first assembled for purposes of a two-volume official biography, E.T. Cooks Life of Florence Nightingale, 1913, and then given to the British Library (in installments). Rosalind Nash, the daughter of another cousin, also worked on assembling the material, although, alas, she is also responsible for the destruction of some of it. This assembling entailed asking the recipients of Nightingale letters to surrender them for copies to be made. Some letters were permanently given back, so that the ultimate collection contains many of the original letters as well as Nightingales drafts and copies of correspondence. As well there are copious and informative drafts at various stages of papers, articles and books, annotated publications and government reports. Since Nightingale wrote letters and notes nearly every day of her life, and because her correspondents considered her letters important and kept them, and indeed often made copies of them for others, the surviving oeuvre is enormous. All the Nightingales were collectors who hated to throw anything away. Sometimes she marked a letter Private or Private Burn, sometimes with numerous underlinings, but most people, it seems, did not heed her command (some did). Moreover, in some cases when she instructed her correspondent to destroy the letter she kept her own copy! The result is that there is a paper trail for a very large part of the important work she did throughout her long life. Not all of this is in the British Library, of course, hence the value of the Collected Works. Indeed it is only by matching these British Library letters with others around the world that the full story can be unravelled, for often a letter in the British Library will make little sense without its answer in another collection, sometimes on another continent. But the British Library is the core. Most of the Nightingale Collection at the British Library arrived in three separate, but substantial, gifts and are relatively well known in the scholarly world. In the time before the collection was electronically accessible these were easy to find. (Before the manuscripts were moved to the new British Library building in 2001 scholars had to use a large number of cumbersome printed catalogues to find sources and often missed key materials.) The Adam Matthew microfilms include material from the lesser-known volumes as well as the three major sets, the last of which is incorrectly identified as Final Part. Neglected Material in the British Library Collection Some extraordinarily interesting family correspondence is among these lesser-known volumes. Indeed the volume I would choose to take to a desert isle is Add Mss 46176 (in Part 2), Nightingales letters to her favourite cousin and her fathers heir, Shore or my boy Shore, William Shore Nightingale. These are variously whimsical and earnest; they include hopes and dreams, philosophy and science, jokes and private nicknames. A nine-volume sequence of volumes, the last series to arrive at the British Library (after the so-called Final Part) also has some treasures, Add Mss 68882-9, letters to and from Frederick and Maude Verney and their children (in Part 2 here). Frederick Verney was the youngest son of Nightingales brother-in-law, Sir Harry Verney. He and Maude, dearest Maude, shared her faith and politics. Over time both became working colleagues (both gave papers for her) and both were close to her in her old age. She was godmother of one of their daughters and wrote to and enjoyed letters from all the children. It was to Maude Verney that Nightingale confided the circumstances of her religious conversion, some fifty years after it happened. (Nightingales call to service, 1837, is well known for she herself referred to it often enough, but the experience of conversion the year before has escaped the attention of scholars, including those specializing in her faith!) This set of letters also does much to show the very warm side of Nightingale, her fondness for children and her encouragement of a capable young woman to make the most of her life. The microfilm edition makes accessible this interesting material, in Part 1, which

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 gives quite a different picture of Nightingale from that now popular among current biographers and commentators. If Nightingales personal life is often written about badly, her massive work on India has scarcely been written on at all. The first full-length book on it appeared in 2004 and scholarly articles are rare and scant. Yet Nightingale worked professionally on India for more than 40 years. She instigated a royal commission on India and encouraged broad terms of reference for public health (a well-known fact). Her meetings with viceroys before they departed for their posts are also well known, but not the years of behind-the-scenes work prodding officials, badgering governors and viceroys, meeting with officials in London and increasingly with Indian nationals committed to reform. All this is clear in the original sources. Nightingales own change in tactics, from promoting reform top down to encouraging change in local areas and using local institutions is also evident in the original papers. The Need for Primary Sources Nightingale is nowadays typically quite misrepresented on womens issues. A BBC2 programme even likened her to Margaret Thatcher and stated that she opposed the vote for women. Yet the original sources show Nightingales strong support for Liberal politics--she really did not like Conservatives although she had to work with them. Rather she gave money to the Liberal Party, wrote letters of support for Liberal candidates and even thought God was a Liberal! So also is her support for the vote for women clear in correspondence. Another example of differences between Nightingale as seen in actual sources and the Nightingale as depicted in the secondary literature concerns public health care. Nightingale is still treated as a nurse or even a military nurse, which only begins to describe what she actually did. Her pioneering work in bringing professional nursing into the workhouse infirmaries, a major step towards the achievement of a public health care system, has received little scholarly attention. This required careful political manoeuvring as well as nursing expertise, and is a fascinating story as it unfolds. The microfilm series includes correspondence with the key players in the reform (William Rathbone and Agnes Jones), as the first experiment took place, in Liverpool. The microfilm series will also show a different Nightingale on issues of war and militarism. Yes, she joked about being the longest serving member of the War Office and she never lost her commitment to improving the quality of life of the ordinary soldier. But correspondence also shows her astute awareness of the dangers of militarism and abhorrence of war. There has been good publication, by Sue Goldie, on Nightingales Crimea work, but her enormous amount of work during the Franco- Prussian War has been ignored (Nightingale was given decorations by both sides). Her concern for civilians in that war, too, as Germany occupied her beloved France, add to the interesting complications, well worth the attention of scholars today. While there are several other large collections of Nightingale letters (Claydon House, the Wellcome Trust and the London Metropolitan Archives notably) none has the breadth of the British Librarys collection. Claydon and the Wellcome (largely through its copies of Claydon material) have larger collections of family correspondence than the British Library, although the British Library has letters from a broader range of family members, and a sizable number overall, too. But no other archive covers the full range of Nightingales interests remotely as well as does the British Library: philosophy, politics, religion, public health, nursing, war, India, statistics and women. The British Library collection is not only superb in range and the quality of its content but it is well cared for. The conservation standards of the library are exemplary, yet it also makes its collections accessible to the scholarly world far better than do most archives. It respects copyright laws and does not (unlike other culprits) purport to control publication of the materials it holds (the prerogative of the copyright holder). In the case of Nightingale the Henry Bonham Carter Will Trust holds copyright and, in the liberal spirit of its namesake, treats the collection in effect as public domain, granting permission readily to any scholar who wishes to publish from it. Components of the Microfilm Series Part 1 of the Adam Matthew Publications series covers the Crimea, India and public health reform, 22 reels of correspondence with such key actors as Sidney and Elizabeth Herbert, Lord Panmure; close friends, Crimea nurses, Queen Victoria and numerous royal personages (including letters on the Franco-Prussian War as well as the Crimean), key collaborators on public health reform and military nursing, nursing and other services for later wars (Egypt and South Africa), the viceroys of India, governors of India presidencies, experts and sanitary reformers of India. Part 2 includes a substantial number of family letters and letters to such close friends as Benjamin Jowett, Harriet Martineau and J.S. Mill, covering thus very personal matters, philosophy and religious faith. Nightingales letters to J.S. Mill on womens rights and the vote are here, as is her critique of Jowetts Dialogues of Plato (she was a Plato scholar herself). Correspondence with presidents of the Poor Law Board on the changes needed in legislation to bring nursing into the workhouse infirmary also appear here. Part 2 includes the general correspondence category, an under-utilized tool organized by year, with incoming letters from an astonishing range of people, sometimes with her replies. Anguished letters from young ladies wanting to become nurses (but Mama and Papa disagree) are juxtaposed with letters from such people as W.E. Gladstone, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Richard Monckton Milnes, her former suitor. Part 3 takes us back to research and writing, to drafts of manuscripts from Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes and Introductory Notes on Lying-in Institutions, both pioneering studies. There is material on army medicine, including drafts for her royal commissions. Much of the India material is here. As well as this more technical material there are drafts of Nightingales writing on religion and philosophy, including the preparation of her three-volume Suggestions for Thought. There are diaries and notebooks (alas, not all, for others are mentioned which have disappeared). Much of the nursing material is here, including correspondence on the Nightingale Fund, which pioneered so much nursing reform. Nightingales correspondence with her cousin, Henry Bonham Carter, secretary of the Nightingale Fund Council for decades provides a handy paper trail on nursing issues and hospital reform work. Part 4 covers correspondence with key nursing leaders over Nightingales whole lifetime, both at St Thomas Hospital, where the Nightingale School was based, and in hospitals throughout Britain and indeed in the world. Here we see how Nightingales influence spread through the work of women she advised and mentored. Correspondence with William Rathbone, the philanthropist who funded the first workhouse infirmary nursing, and with Agnes Jones, the superintendent of nursing who

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 died on the job at the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary, is here. Scope for the Microfilm Series This microfilm publication of such wide scope will facilitate research not only into Nightingales own contribution as a theorist, advocate and reformer, but on major colleagues with whom she worked. It permits a thorough examination of sources, including final printed copies, correspondence on and drafts of major texts. Thus it makes possible both a better understanding of Nightingales method and her use of a network of colleagues to effect change. The results were spectacular: major reforms in public health care measures, especially for the sick poor, the neglected of her time as ours. The issues on which she was working are still issues today and the method she used to tackle them still makes sense. Dr Lynn McDonald Department of Sociology and Anthropology University of Guelph Editor of 'The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale' <back

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 Publisher's Note 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 our microfilm publication contains Florence Nightingale s correspondence relating to public health reform, India and the Crimea. Included are letters to Sidney Herbert, Fox Maule and John Joseph Frederick of the War Office and members of the staff of the Army Medical School such as Edmund Alexander Parkes, Professor of Hygiene, William Aitken, Professor of Pathology and Thomas Longmore, Professor of Military Surgery. There are many letters to leading figures in sanitary reform such as Dr John Sutherland, Sir Robert Rawlinson who headed the sanitary commission sent to the Crimea in 1855 and Sir Edwin Chadwick. There are also letters to influential holders of public office such as Lt-Colonel John Henry Lefroy, William Farr, Superintendent of Statistics at the General Register Office and Sir John McNeill, surgeon and diplomatist. A large section covers her letters with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, Assistant Under-Secretary for War and Director of Public Works and Buildings. Letters are also included from Florence s sister Parthenope which give us an insight into Nightingale s character and how her time in the Crimea had affected her. Of particular interest are the letters Florence Nightingale wrote to the wives of leading figures. Included is her correspondence with Mary Elizabeth Herbert, Laura Rolfe, Selina Holte Bracebridge, Elizabeth Sutherland, Marianne Strutt Galton and Elizabeth McNeill. Fascinating material for the Crimea includes her autobiographical memoranda, reports on her Crimean nurses and her accompt books during the Crimean War. Included also are her letters giving details on the soldiers who died in her care. Correspondence with nurses includes: Jane Catherine Shaw Stewart, a Crimean nurse, later Lady Superintendent of Netley Hospital, Sybil Airy, an Army nurse later Matron of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Bournemouth and Amy E Hawthorn, a nurse during the First Boer War. Also included is correspondence with sanitary reformers of India, Queen Victoria and her family, viceroys of India and governors of India presidencies. Part 2 covers Nightingale s family letters and correspondence with intellectual and political friends. Letters with family include correspondence with her parents; with her sister Frances Parthenope and her brother-in-law, Sir Harry Verney; her nephew, Frederick William Verney and his wife Maude; Gwendolen Verney, daughter of the former; her uncle and aunt, Samuel and Mary Smith; her aunt, Hannah Nicholson; her cousin, Joanna Hilary Bonham Carter; Edith Joanna Bonham Carter; her cousin, William Shore-Smith and his wife, Louisa Eleanor and Rosalind Frances Mary Shore-Smith, daughter of William Shore-Smith and wife of Vaughan Nash. Nightingale writes to members of her family on all manner of subjects. Some letters are of a very personal nature showing her caring side, regularly sending flowers and presents. Many letters concentrate on her ongoing interests: hospitals, army medical schools, nursing and sanitation in India. She corresponds regularly on schools for Bosnian children in Sarajevo, the Gordon Boys Home, the Buckinghamshire Lunatic Asylum, Home Rule, women s suffrage and the political career of her nephew Frederick William Verney ( Mr Fred ). Some of this correspondence includes letters not previously catalogued by Goldie and largely unknown to scholars. Nightingale was a prolific letter writer and her correspondence with important figures of the period contains representatives from every facet of social, political and literary life. Included are groups of letters from: Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, Oxford - letters on philosophy and religion; Sir Henry Wentworth Dyke Acland, Professor of Medicine at Oxford - letters on health in workhouses; Henry Burrard Farnall, Poor Law Board Inspector; John Stuart Mill - letters regarding religion and women s suffrage; Charles Pelham Villiers MP; Viscount Gathorne Hardy - regarding the Poor Law and hospitals; Sir William Henry Wyatt, the social reformer concerning probationary nurses and workhouse nursing; Thomas Spring-Rice and his wife Elizabeth; Harriet Martineau - on prostitution, public health in India and medical/nursing services in the American Civil War; Mary Carpenter, social reformer - regarding social reform in India; Julia Salis Schwabe - concerning the improvement in the welfare of Italian women; Mrs Georgiana Moore, Mother Superior of the Convent of our Lady of Mercy, Bermondsey - on the condition of workhouse hospitals. Included also under General Correspondence are a fascinating mix of correspondents touching on a multitude of topics: Lady Canning, Lord Palmerston, Lord Grey, Nightingale nurses and nursing superintendents, G W Hastings of the National

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 Association for the Promotion of Social Science, Mrs Gatskell, Sir William Heathcote concerning hospitals, Charlotte Balfour, George Carr regarding nursing in workhouses, Thomas Watson, the Chairman of the Committee on Workhouse Infirmaries, Louisa Freeeman, the Lady Superintendent of Nurses at the Workhouse Infirmary in Liverpool, the Birmingham branch of the National Society for Women s Suffrage, J H Barnes at the Lying-In department of the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary, Louisa Twining of the Association for Promoting Trained Nursing in Workhouse Infirmaries and Sick Asylums, Sir F Roberts concerning homes for sick nurses and sanitation in army hospitals in India, Lydia Constable at the Gordon Boys Home, Lord Cross, Principal Secretary of State for India regarding sanitation in India, Lady Roseberry regarding the nursing of the sick at home, Horace Walpole, G Snodgrass at the Royal Military Infirmary in Dublin, various correspondents in the USA, Sweden and Hungary, John R Lunn at St Marlebone Infirmary in Notting Hill, London and Jane Wilson of the Workhouse Infirmary Nursing Association. Part 3 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 highlevel 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. They 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, the first full-length book on the subject was only 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 covers Nightingale s work with the nursing profession. Lynn McDonald says Her pioneering work in bringing professional nursing into the workhouse infirmaries, a major step towards the achievement of a public health care system, has received little scholarly attention. This required careful political manoeuvring as well as nursing expertise, and is a fascinating story as it unfolds. This story can be followed in this collection of manuscripts. They consist of Nightingale s correspondence with key nursing figures, not only at St Thomas s Hospital, where the Nightingale Training School was based, but also in hospitals and other nursing institutions throughout Britain and the world. As well as founding the Nightingale Training School she was also involved in establishing the East London Nursing Society (1868), the Workhouse Nursing Association and National Society for Trained Nurses for the Poor (1874) and the Queen s Nursing Institute (1890). At the beginning of the nineteenth century hospital nurses were uneducated working-class women whose main tasks consisted of cleaning patients, making beds, emptying slops and making poultices. Most nurses worked a 16 hour shift and had no paid time off. They had no space of their own, they cooked over the ward fire and slept in the attics, cellars and sometimes in the wards with the patients. Most of the nurses were illiterate and considered unrespectable, being prone to drunkenness. In charge of them was a housekeeper who usually came from the lower middle class. She was not a nurse and was only responsible for order and discipline among the nurses. However by the end of the century thanks to Nightingale and the training of nurses at the Nightingale Training School the profession and its status in society had changed beyond recognition. Ordinary nurses were trained and had become respectable workers and the matron was a trained nurse of the upper classes whose chief responsibility was to train the nurses and make sure they provided good patient care. Professional nursing was available to all on a par with that available at fee-paying hospitals.

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 The Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas s Hospital was founded by Nightingale in 1860 and nurses trained there were sent to hospitals across Britain and abroad. Nightingale care consisted of orderly, disciplined female controlled nursing which emphasised hygiene and moral as well as physical cleanliness. Nurses consisted of less educated working class women who entered as lay sisters who would receive a small amount of money on completion and placement in an institution or home and who were under the control of middle class women who entered as Lady or Special Probationers and became Sisters. The training lasted for one year and the students lived in private rooms with a common social room in a special area of the hospital. They attended classes with an average size of 20-30 students and also looked after the sick at the hospital. At the end of the 1860s, after a period of leaving the running of the school to the Matron, Mrs Wardroper, Nightingale resumed her interest in the daily work of the school and realised her rules were not being implemented and the Sisters had no control of the probationers. Nor were these women given any opportunity to improve their education and religious knowledge which she believed were essential for the training of a nurse. She therefore began to make efforts to improve the school and made changes to staff. Mrs Wardroper remained, but the apothecary was dismissed and a surgeon was employed to give lectures. Mary Crossland, as Home Sister, was employed and Nightingale herself began to see the nurses on a regular basis and write her famous annual addresses to the probationers. The correspondence in the Nightingale papers in this part covers key British nursing figures: Mrs Sarah Elizabeth Wardroper, Matron of St Thomas s Hospital, 1857-1894Angelique Lucille Pringle of the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh and Matron of St Thomas s Hospital, 1872-1909 Louisa McKay Gordon, Matron of St Thomas s Hospital, 1890-1900 Mary S Crossland, Home-Sister, 1875-1900 Sarah Anne Terrot, a former Crimean nurse who worked with Nightingale, 1857-1868 Mary Jones, Lady Superior of St John s House Training Institution for Nurses, 1860-1881. She also led the midwifery nurse training programme at King s College Hospital Maria M Machin, Matron of Montreal General Hospital and of St Bartholomew s Hospital, Smithfield, 1873-1900 Mary J Pyne, Matron of Westminster Hospital, 1873-1897 Eva Charlotte Ellis Luckes, Matron of the London Hospital, 1889-1899 Rachel Williams, Matron of St Mary s Hospital, Paddington, 1873-1899 Jane E Styring, Matron of Paddington Infirmary, 1877-1900 Elizabeth Vincent, Matron of St Marylebone Infirmary, 1873-1901 Elizabeth Anne Torrance, Matron of Highgate Infirmary, 1869-1877 Annie E Hill, Matron of Highgate Infirmary, 1872-1877 Flora Masson, Matron of the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, 1889-1897 Elizabeth Ann Barclay, Lady Superintendent of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, 1871-1877 Frances Elizabeth Spencer, Lady Superintendent of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, 1873-1900 Jessie Lennox, Matron of Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, 1869-1896 Agnes Elizabeth Jones, Lady Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary, 1861-1868 (together with extracts from her journal) Florence Sarah Lees, afterwards Florence Sarah Lees Craven, wife of Rev Dacre Craven, Superintendent General of the Metropolitan and National Nursing Association, 1868-1900 Mary Elinor Wilson, Lady Superintendent of Scarborough Ladies Convalescent Home, 1868-1870 Amy Hughes, Superintendent of the Metropolitan and National Nursing Association and of Bolton Workhouse Infirmary, 1891-1901 Also included are drafts of Nightingale s letters to probationers at St Thomas s Hospital, 1873-1900, to the nurses at the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary, 1868 and to the nurses at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, 1872-1873. Correspondence relating to nursing abroad consists of: Correspondence with Sir Henry Parkes, GCMG, Prime Minister of New South Wales, 1866-1892 Correspondence with Miss Lucy Osburn, (1836-1891), Superintendent of the Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, 1867-1885. Trained at the Nightingale Training School in London Osburn is considered the founder of modern nursing in Australia Correspondence with M Amy Turton, Superintendent of the Scuola Infermiera, Florence, 1893-1903 Letters from Emily (Emmy) Rappe, a Swedish nurse, 1867-1870. She joined the Nightingale School in 1866 and returned to Sweden to take up a post at a new hospital in Uppsala and later became Inspector of Nursing Schools Also included is Nightingale s correspondence with medical officers, including surgeon John Croft, 1873-1893, Richard Gullett Whitfield, Apothecary and Resident Medical Officer, 1858-1872 and William Ogle, MD, physician of the Derbyshire General Infirmary, 1864-1891. We also include letters to other important figures involved in public health reforms whom she could call on for advice and who worked with her behind the scenes. William Rathbone, MP, a wealthy Liverpool merchant and philanthropist who worked closely with Nightingale regarding the training of nurses. In 1862 the Liverpool Training School and Home for Nurses was established, from which a district nursing system was begun which spread throughout the country. He was also instrumental with Nightingale in the reform of workhouse infirmary nursing in Liverpool which Nightingale hoped would lead to general reform and later to the abolition of the workhouse system. Papers included here relate to the foundation of the Queen s Jubilee Institute of District Nursing, 1887

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 Surgeon-General Thomas Graham Balfour MD, mostly relating to the Army Sanitary Commission of 1857 and its report of 1858 Alexander MacGrigor MD relating to his service as Principal Medical Officer and later as Deputy Inspector of Hospitals at the Barrack Hospital at Scutari, 1854-1855 Detailed notes by Nightingale of her interviews with hospital physicians and women concerned with the organisation of district or general nursing, covering 1871-1898 are also to be found in this fourth part as are the interesting notes of her interviews with members of the nursing staff of St Thomas s Hospital, for the same period. Miscellaneous memoranda and notes regarding the nursing profession are also included together with those relating to the Royal British Nursing Association and its charter. 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. <back

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 Contents of Reels - Part 1 REEL 1 Add Ms 43393 - Correspondence with Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea 1861 1854-1856 Add Ms 43394 - Correspondence with Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea 1861 1857-February 1858 REEL 2 Add Ms 43395 - Correspondence with Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea 1861 March 1858-July 1861 Autograph manuscript of Florence Nightingales Army Sanitary Reform under the late Lord Herbert 1862 Add Ms 43396 - Correspondence etc with Mary Elizabeth Herbert, wife of Sidney Herbert 1848-1890 REEL 3 Add Ms 43397 - Correspondence with Fox Maule, 2nd Baron Panmure (11th Earl of Dalhousie 1860) 1856-1857 Correspondence with John Joseph Frederick, of the War Office 1865-1899 Correspondence with Laura Rolfe, wife of Robert, 1st Baron Cranworth 1855-1863 Papers of, and letters to, Charles Holte Bracebridge, and his wife, Selina - 1855-1867, 1857-1864 Add Ms 43397 - Correspondence with Lt-Colonel John Henry Lefroy, RA (KCMG 1877) - 1856-1864 Add Ms 43397 - Correspondence with Mary Clarke, wife (1847) of Julius Mohl, the orientalist together with some correspondence with her husband - 1846-1870 Add Ms 43398 - Correspondence with William Farr (Superintendent of Statistics, General Register Office) - 1857-1860 REEL 4 Add Ms 43399 - Correspondence with William Farr (Superintendent of Statistics, General Register Office) - 1861-1864 Add Ms 43400 - Correspondence with William Farr (Superintendent of Statistics, General Register Office) - 1865-1877 REEL 5 Add Ms 43401 - General Correspondence and Accompts of Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War - 1854-1857 Add Ms 43402 - Reports by Florence Nightingale on her Crimean Nurses - c1854-1856 Papers relating to Sultan Abdul Medjids bounty to the nurses - 1856 Autobiographical and other memoranda by Florence Nightingale - 1845-1860 Add Ms 43403 - Accompt Book A - July 1853-Jan 1854 Accompt Book B - March 1862-June 1864 Accompt Book C - June 1864-1867 REEL 6 Add Ms 43546 - Correspondence from the Ripon Papers with George Frederick Samuel Robinson, 2nd Earl of Ripon and 3rd Earl de Grey of Wrest, 1st Marquess of Ripon 1871-1861-1902 Add Ms 45750 - Correspondence with Queen Victoria, members of her family and others Letters to Florence Nightingale on behalf of Albert, the Prince Consort - 1860 Letter to Queen Victoria - 1882 Letter to Queen Alexandra - 1901 Correspondence with Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise, Princess Royal and wife of Frederick III, German Emperor - 1866-1891 Letters from Princess Alice Maud Mary, wife of Frederick William Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt 1877-1866-1873

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 Correspondence with Princess Helena Augusta Victoria, wife of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein - 1872-1895 Correspondence with Louisa Mary Elizabeth, wife of Frederick William Louis, Grand Duke of Baden - 1860-1896 Letter from Mrs E B Mawer, enclosing a letter to her from the Princess Elizabeth, wife of Charles I, King of Rumania 1881-1877 Copies of correspondence with Count Paul Wolff Metternich, German Ambassador in London, on behalf of William II, German Emperor - 1907 REEL 7 Add Ms 45751 - Correspondence with John Sutherland, MD, the sanitary reformer - 1856-1864 Add Ms 45752 - Correspondence with John Sutherland, MD, the sanitary reformer - 1865-1867 REEL 8 Add Ms 45753 - Correspondence with John Sutherland, MD, the sanitary reformer - 1868 - Sept 1869 Add Ms 45754 - Correspondence with John Sutherland, MD, the sanitary reformer - Oct 1869 - July 1870 REEL 9 Add Ms 45755 - Correspondence with John Sutherland, MD, the sanitary reformer - July 1870 - June 1871 Add Ms 45756 - Correspondence with John Sutherland, MD, the sanitary reformer - July 1871 - Sept 1872 REEL 10 Add Ms 45757 - Correspondence with John Sutherland, MD, the sanitary reformer - Oct 1872-1875 Add Ms 45758 - Correspondence with John Sutherland, MD, the sanitary reformer 1876-1888 Correspondence with S Elizabeth, wife of John Sutherland - 1859-1895 REEL 11 Add Ms 45759 - Correspondence with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, KCB, Assistant Under-Secretary for War 1862-1869, Director of Public Works and Buildings 1869-1875, 1857 - August 1861 Add Ms 45760 - Correspondence with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, KCB, Assistant Under-Secretary for War 1862-1869, Director of Public Works and Buildings 1869-1875 - Sept 1861 - March 1863 REEL 12 Add Ms 45761 - Correspondence with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, KCB, Assistant Under-Secretary for War 1862-1869, Director of Public Works and Buildings 1869-1875, April - December 1863 Add Ms 45762 - Correspondence with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, KCB, Assistant Under-Secretary for War 1862-1869, Director of Public Works and Buildings 1869, 1875-1864 REEL 13 Add Ms 45763 - Correspondence with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, KCB, Assistant Under-Secretary for War 1862-1869, Director of Public Works and Buildings 1869-1875, 1865-1866 Add Ms 45764 - Correspondence with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, KCB, Assistant Under-Secretary for War 1862-1869, Director of Public Works and Buildings 1869-1875, 1867-1880 REEL 14 Add Ms 45765 - Correspondence with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, KCB, Assistant Under-Secretary for War 1862-1869, Director of Public Works and Buildings 1869-1875, 1881-1886 Add Ms 45766 - Correspondence with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, KCB, Assistant Under-Secretary for War 1862-1869, Director of Public Works and Buildings 1869-1875, 1887-1889 REEL 15 Add Ms 45767 - Correspondence with Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, KCB, Assistant Under-Secretary for War 1862-1869, Director of Public Works and Buildings 1869-1875, 1890-1897

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 Correspondence with Marianne, wife of Captain Sir Douglas Strutt Galton, 1847-1899 Add Ms 45768 - Correspondence with Sir John McNeill, GCB, surgeon and diplomatist, 1855-1881 Typewritten copies of correspondence with Elizabeth, wife of Sir John McNeill, 1856-1858 REEL 16 Add Ms 45769 - Correspondence with Sir Robert Rawlinson, KCB, civil engineer, 1861-1895 Add Ms 45770 - Correspondence with Sir Edwin Chadwick, CB, Knight 1889, the sanitary reformer, 1857-1861 REEL 17 Add Ms 45771 - Correspondence with Sir Edwin Chadwick, CB, Knight 1889, the sanitary reformer, 1862-1883 Add Ms 45772 - Correspondence with Sir Thomas Crawford, KCB, Director-General, Army Medical Department - 1882-1895 Correspondence with Sir James Clark, 1st Baronet, physician, 1857-1869 Correspondence with Surgeon-General Thomas Graham Balfour, MD, 1857-1889 REEL 18 Add Ms 45773 - Correspondence with members of the Staff of the Army Medical School: Edmund Alexander Parkes, Professor of Hygiene - 1856-1876 William Aitken, Professor of Pathology - 1857-1861 Thomas Longmore, Professor of Military Surgery, Knight 1886, 1861-1882 Add Ms 45774 - Correspondence with Jane Catherine Shaw Stewart, a Crimean nurse, afterwards Lady Superintendent of Netley Hospital - 1856-1888 REEL 19 Add Ms 45775 - Correspondence with Mrs Jane C Deeble, Superintendent of Nurses at Netley Hospital - 1869-1892 Correspondence with Sybil Airy, an Army nurse during the Egyptian campaign and Matron of the Royal Victoria Hospital, Bournemouth, 1876-1899 Add Ms 45776 - Correspondence with Amy E Hawthorn, nurse during the First Boer War and wife of Colonel Robert Hawthorn, 1880-1896 REEL 20 Add Ms 45777 - Correspondence with Sir John Laird Mair Lawrence 1st Baronet, 1st Baron Lawrence 1869, as Viceroy, 1862-1879 Add Ms 45778 - Correspondence with George Frederick Samuel Robinson, 2nd Earl of Ripon and 3rd Earl de Grey of Wrest, 1st Marquess of Ripon 1871, as Viceroy, 1861-1889 Correspondence with Henry Charles Keith Petty-FitzMaurice, 5th Marquess of Landsdowne, as Viceroy, 1888-1899 REEL 21 Add Ms 45779 - Correspondence with Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount Cranborne, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury 1868, Secretary of State for India, 1866-1892 Correspondence with Sir Stafford Henry Northcote, 8th Baronet, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh, 1885, Secretary of State for India, 1867-1874 Correspondence with Sir Louis Mallet, of the India Office, 1875-1885 Correspondence with Francis Napier, 10th Baron Napier and 1st Baron Ettrick of Ettrick 1872, Governor of Madras, including letters from his wife Nina, (Anne Jane Charlotte), 1866-1879 Add Ms 45780 - Correspondence with Sir Henry Bartle Edward Frere, GCSI, 1st Baronet 1876, 1867-1875 REEL 22 Add Ms 45781 - Correspondence with Edward Henry Stanley, Lord Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby 1869 as President of the Indian Army Sanitary Commission - 1857-1867 Correspondence with James Pattison Walker, MS, Surgeon-General 1877, as Secretary to the Bengal Sanitary Commission,

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 1863-1868 Add Ms 45782 - Correspondence with Thomas Gillham Hewlett, CIE, Health Officer of Bombay, 1867-1889 Correspondence with Robert Staunton Ellis, CB, Chief Secretary to the Madras Government 1870, 1864-1868 Add Ms 45782 - Papers relating to, and correspondence with, Charles Hathaway, MD, Special Sanitary Commissioner for Calcutta - 1861-1864 Letters from Charles Chicheley Plowden, of the India Office, 1868-1870 Correspondence with Major George Bruce Malleson, Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal, CSI 1872, CIE 1873, 1866-1867 <back

NIGHTINGALE: Public Health and Victorian Society, Parts 1 to 4 Contents of Reels - Part 2 REEL 23 Add Ms45783 Correspondence with Benjamin Jowett Master of Balliol College, Oxford 1862-August 1871 Add Ms45784 Correspondence with Benjamin Jowett Master of Balliol College, Oxford Oct 1871-1873 REEL 24 Add Ms45785 Correspondence with Benjamin Jowett Master of Balliol College, Oxford 1874-1893 Papers of Florence Nightingale relating to E Abbott and L Campbell 'The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett' (1897) 1894-1896 Add Ms45786 Correspondence with Sir Henry Wentworth Dyke Acland, KCB, 1st Baronet of Oxford, 1890, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford 1867-1897 Correspondence with Henry Burrard Farnall, C B Poor Law Board Inspector 1865-1867 REEL 25 Add Ms45787 Correspondence with John Stuart Mill 1860-1868 Correspondence with The Hon Charles Pelham Villiers, MP 1864-1867 Correspondence with Gathorne Hardy, afterwards Gathorne-Hardy, Viscount (1878)and 1st Earl of Cranbrook 1892 1866-1877 Correspondence with Sir William Henry Wyatt, the social reformer 1868-1878 Correspondence with Thomas Spring-Rice, 2nd Baron Monteagle, and his wife Elizabeth 1896-1898 Add Ms45788 Correspondence with Harriet Martineau 1858-1871 REEL 26 Add Ms45789 Typewritten copies of letters to Mrs Georgiana Moore, Mother Superior of the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy, Bermondsey 1856-1868 Lettersfrom Adeline Paulina Irby, traveller 1870-1879 Correspondence with Mary Carpenter, social reformer 1867-1876 Correspondence with Julia Salis Schwabe, wife of Salis Schwabe, of Bangor 1861-1866 Add Ms45790 Correspondence with Florence Nightingale?s parents 1850-1869 REEL 27 Add Ms45791 Correspondence with Sir Harry Verney, 2nd Baronet 1859-1896 Correspondence with her sister Frances Parthenope, second wife (1858) of Sir Harry Verney 1847-1888 Correspondence with Frederick William Verney (M P 1906) fourth son of Sir Harry Verney, 2nd Baronet 1886-1900 Add Ms45792 Correspondence with her uncle Samuel Smith followed by correspondence ofthe latter's wife Mary (Aunt Mai?) with Florence and other members of her family 1856-1861 REEL 28 Add Ms45793