Florence Nightingale: An Introduction to Her Life and Family: Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, Volume 1

Grandmother, Mary Shore

Letters to, from and about Nightingale’s Extended Family Grandmother, Mary Shore N ightingale frequently visited her paternal grandmother, Mary (Evans) Shore, who lived at Tapton Grove, in the pleasant, rural outskirts of Sheffield. She nursed her grandmother Shore several times in serious illness and came back from Paris to attend to her in her last days. She held her hand when she died and made the funeral arrangements. The correspondence ranges from childhood letters to her grandmother to letters to her parents and a friend on her grandmother’s last illness and death. It seems that Nightingale took the initiative to get to know her grandmother and her grandmother’s unmarried sister , Nightingale’s (great) Aunt Elizabeth Evans. The first, undated item, suggests that Parthenope Nightingale hardly knew either. The rest of the correspondence is reported chronologically. In a much-later conversation with Benjamin Jowett Nightingale described her grandmother as having ‘‘died at the age of ninety-five of a broken heart, because her sister had died three months previously at the age of ninety-three.’’ Grandmother Shore was ‘‘violent, but with a depth of affection which assured you that she was the same, however long she might have been absent.’’1 Source: Incomplete, unsigned letter, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 9013/107 . . . My ‘‘Aunt Mai’’ as we used to call her was the very first in afterlife to say to me how unfair she was to her mother . . . a woman into whose mind no meanness ever entered, nor any gossip or ill-natured pettiness ever passed out of her mouth. Of how few great town ladies could one say that? 1 Jowett commonplace book, for October 1873, Balliol College Archives 1 H 24 f63. / 409 My father and sister were, as perhaps you know, singularly subject to the ‘‘caprice des yeux.’’ If St Paul himself had been ungraceful, he would have found no favour in their sight. But he and I have often talked in afterlife of a certain greatness there was about his mother. My dear sister never really knew her. Source: Letter in child’s printing, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 8991/1 Embley 14 October 1827 My dear Grandmama [Mary Shore] After we went from Tapton we went to Buxton [Derbyshire] then to Betley Hall, where Mr and Mrs Tollet live, then to Downton Castle [both in Herefordshire] and Boultibrooke [in an adjacent county in Wales]. I wish you would give us a cure for the rats for I think they will make a hole in the drawing room. Papa and Mamma, Uncle Sam, Aunt Mai and Miss Johnson are going to Petersfield. Aunt Julia [Smith] will teach us our lessons when they are gone. They will remain there a few days then Miss Johnson, Uncle Sam and Aunt Mai will go to London and Papa and Mama return here 15 October. Mr Beber, a German teacher, came here. He told Susan Cromwell, the mistress of our school at Wellow, how to teach the children. Pray answer me my letter. I teach Agathe, the French girl, English. Goodbye and believe your affectionate granddaughter Florence Nightingale P.S. Give my love to Street, a goodbye to the great dog Nelson. Source: Letter in child’s printing, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 8991/63 Ditcham My dear Grandmama [Mary Shore] Papa sent for us to meet him here and we came here on Friday. We left Aunt Mary and Baby and Blanche quite well. Mrs Coltman has been confined with a boy, and she has been in imminent danger, though she is now rather better, but still in danger. She is in a high fever, and may not see anybody, but her nurse and doctor, not even her baby, who is suckled [by] another person. This house is a delightful place, on the top of a high hill, with downs all round. Goodbye, and believe me, dear Grandmama, your affectionate Flo N. 410 / Florence Nightingale: Her Life and Family Source: Letter in child’s printing, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 8991/9 Wednesday, 2 July [1828] Dear Grandmama [Mary Shore] . . . I have been to the Zoological Society twice. There are two leopards , two bears, two parrots, two emus (which are very large birds), two rabbits, one lion, two cockatoos, three squirrels, four kangaroos, six monkeys (three in a cage, three chained to a pole with a little house at the top), one rattel (a very fierce...