Florence Nightingale Talk

Looking for an interesting way to spend half an hour? Why not listen to Dr Jonathan Memel from the University of Nottingham's Florence Nightingale project team, who will be giving a free live-streamed talk on Tuesday 13 April at 2.30pm on the theme of ‘Florence Nightingale and Health at Home’.  Florence Nightingale's family had a …

Florence Nightingale Museum faces closure

The Florence Nightingale Museum is based in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital, London, the place where, in 1860, Nightingale established her School of Nursing. In this bicentenary year of her birth and the designated International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, the museum is sadly facing the threat of closure due to the Covid-19 …

Florence Nightingale: Breaking Barriers

Back in March, we received a very interesting enquiry from an 11 year old fan of Florence Nightingale.  Meenakshi is a 6th grade student from Missouri City, Texas, USA and as part of the National History Day 2020 project themed 'Breaking Barriers in History', she has written a research paper entitled The Lady with the …

Florence Nightingale’s local patients (part 2)

Roger has almost finishing transcribing the letters of Florence Nightingale to Crich doctor Christopher Dunn and will be researching some of the patients she cared for.  Here is another instalment from Roger about the letters, and one patient in particular... "little Lee". The letters are predominantly about the health and welfare of individuals living in …

Florence Nightingale’s Connection to Pleasley Colliery

I came across a rather unusual connection between the woman famous for nursing in the Crimean War and mining in Pleasley. At first it sounds like the two should be completely unconnected but it involves a little local legend and a connection to her father. What better time to share this story than in celebration …

Florence Nightingale’s local patients (part 1)

Today is famous nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale's 200th birthday.  Her life is being celebrated across the world during 2020 although the coronavirus pandemic means that many planned events have had to be cancelled or postponed. Through the course of this week, we'll be posting on Florence's connections with Derbyshire and how her story is influencing …

Celebrating Florence

Tomorrow sees the 200th anniversary of the birth of the woman credited as the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale (12 May 1820-13 August 1910). Florence served as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers. Shocked by conditions in the hospital Florence began to …

New Florence Nightingale website

Many people aren't aware that Florence Nightingale, world famous as the founder of modern nursing, came from a Derbyshire family.  Although mostly associated in popular imagination with the Crimea, of course, and London (where she died), Florence came from the Nightingale family of Lea, near Matlock, and retained strong connections with her family home and the people of Lea. Florence's links with Derbyshire are …

William Nightingale’s ‘Domesday Book’: guest post by Dr Richard Bates

Did you know that in a couple of years it will be 200 years since Florence Nightingale was born?  Many people aren't aware that Florence's family was from Derbyshire, but to link with her anniversary, the University of Nottingham has a major Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project called Florence Nightingale comes home for 2020.  One of the researchers …

Treasure 39: Florence Nightingale’s letters to C B N Dunn

Florence Nightingale's letters to Crich surgeon C B N Dunn are a fascinating read, for their social history content as well as for the insights they can provide into the life of their author.  You can find out more about them in some of our previous blog posts.  In this example (D2546/ZZ/54), Nightingale tells Dunn …