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

An Outline of Florence Nightingale’s Life

An Outline of Florence Nightingale’s Life N ightingale’s parents were married on 1 June 1818 by an evangelical priest, Dr William Dealtrey,1 rector of the parish church of Clapham Common, at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster (next door to Westminster Abbey), then and now a favourite venue for fashionable weddings. They honeymooned at the Smiths’ estate, Parndon Hall, Essex. There was evidently some unpleasantness between the families, for the groom’s parents were not invited to the wedding. WEN’s father, William Shore, went to London hoping to see the couple the day after the wedding, but they had already left on their honeymoon. He wrote his son: ‘‘Don’t you think your mother and I ought to have been at the wedding? I have heard it strongly insisted on by people who are correct judges.’’2 The young couple left soon after on a lengthy European trip. Their first daughter, Frances Parthenope, was born in Naples in 1819 and named after the Greek name of that city. Florence Nightingale was born 12 May 1820 in Florence, Italy, and also named after the city of her birth. The large and elegant house the Nightingales rented there, Villa Colombaia (at via Santa Maria a Marignolle 2), is now a school (Beata Maria de Mattias) and convent of the Adoratrici del Sangue de Christo (Adorers of the Precious Blood of Christ). It is situated near the Porta Romana, on a hill where the air is healthier than in the city proper. There is a splendid park and view of the Duomo and Allee of the Boboli Gardens. The Nightingale family was English gentry taking a leisurely continental tour; they stayed at Villa Colombaia nearly three years. The young Florence was nursed there by a wet nurse, Umiliana Pistelli. A three-clause contract 1 Letter to Frances Nightingale 31 August 1864, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 9001/57. 2 Letter to W.E. Nightingale 1 June 1818, Claydon House Bundle 12. / 15 was signed 1 July 1820 by W.E. Nightingale for her services.3 Nightingale was baptized by Dr Trevor, Prebendary of Chester on 4 July 1820 (Cook, Life 1:4). When Nightingale’s parents brought their two children home from Florence to Derbyshire they had the charming family house, Lea Hall,4 replaced by a larger establishment, Lea Hurst, now a residence for the aged.5 In 1825 Nightingale’s father purchased Embley Park, on the edge of the New Forest, Hampshire, now a grammar school. Hence from when Nightingale was five the family had two chief homes: Lea Hurst from July to October, Embley for most of the year; some time was also spent in rented quarters in London. W.E. Nightingale had inherited a sizable fortune and the family lived in great luxury . Socially they were upwardly mobile on both sides, the money having been made in the early eighteenth century in lead mining, quarrying and smelting. Their father supervised the two daughters’ exceptional education. While there was a governess, notably for the early years, he himself provided much of the later instruction. The curriculum included modern languages (French, German and Italian), classical languages (Latin and Greek), mathematics and constitutional history as well as the more conventional grammar, composition, English literature and music. Florence Nightingale was able to translate Homer by age sixteen . Indeed throughout her life she repeatedly compared Greek wars with those in which she was involved, for example Thermopylae (in the Greek wars against the Persians) with Balaclava in the Crimean War. A letter to her sister describes the nurses as the Thermopylae of ‘‘this desperate struggle,’’ while Lord Raglan,6 cold and famine were the ‘‘Persians, our own destroyers.’’7 She was familiar with the classics of her own language, read contemporary novels and kept up with the latest poets. There were numerous relatives on both sides and cousins visited for weeks at a time. Outings, picnics, musical performances and amateur theatre were enjoyed (the young Florence was apparently a bossy 3 Claydon House Bundle 20. 4 Norman Keen, Florence Nightingale. 5 Lea Hurst RSAS AgeCare. 6 Lord Raglan (1788-1855), Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in Crimea. 7 Letter to Parthenope Nightingale 8 March 1855, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 8995/9. 16 / Florence Nightingale: Her Life and Family stage manager for Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice) (see p 463 below). When Embley was undergoing a major renovation in...