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Implementation of the Royal Commission’s Recommendations T he Indian royal commission’s report, signed by the commission ’s members 19 May 1863 and by Lord Stanley, Lord de Grey and Sir Charles Wood in June, was issued 8 July. The first task toward its implementation was to set in motion the War Office and the India Office work in London while securing the cooperation of British officials in India. To that effect, lobbying and agitation had to be deployed and consistently sustained. Nightingale’s conviction was firm, and she kept repeating that ‘‘a report is not selfexecutive ’’ (see p 220 below). Parliamentary interest in Indian affairs had to be stimulated. Lord Stanley sadly remarked on the ‘‘empty state of the House when Indian discussions had taken place within the last two years or eighteen months. . . . ’’1 At times Lord Stanley himself had to be prodded and spurred to action; compared with Sidney Herbert, Nightingale felt, doubtless unjustly, that he was somewhat less committed to the cause she had espoused. At any rate she kept stressing to Lord Stanley that, if the needed practical reforms were not done, ‘‘the four years’ labours of your royal commission are as bad as lost’’ (see p 265 below). The report had first to be disseminated and brought to the knowledge of friends, media, politicians and British officials; it also had to be constantly recalled to the attention of Parliament. Nightingale was in almost daily communication with Sir Charles Wood, secretary of state for India, as well as Lord Stanley, who was now involved in setting up the home sanitary commission. Lord Stanley kept responsibility for the implementation of the report until he was named secretary of state for foreign affairs in 1866. Sir Harry Verney gave Nightingale a further privileged link to Parliament. She was also in close contact with Lord de Grey, secretary of state for war, and with the members of 1 Remark made 13 June 1861, cited by Donovan Williams, The India Office 1858-1869 25. / 215 the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission, John Sutherland , Douglas Galton, Robert Rawlinson and William Farr, among others . She sought to convey the necessary information to the decision makers and to keep the pressure on the administrative machine. In India she made full use of her friendship with John Lawrence. Important British officials and most of the successive viceroys paid her a personal visit on being appointed to their post, kept correspondence with her and ‘‘reported’’ to her. She would most diffidently offer to provide information, emphasizing that previous governors general had granted her that privilege. She also had precious contacts in India to see to the realization of sanitary changes in the army and in the population at large. She knew who was committed to the cause. In London, the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission, appointed in October 1857, became a permanent body in 1862. It proposed in 1864 the important Suggestions in Regard to Sanitary Works Required for Improving Indian Stations, mainly written by Nightingale; it is reproduced below. The commission was renamed ‘‘Army Sanitary Commission’’ in 1865 and was expected to co-operate with the India Office Sanitary Committee formed in 1867—Nightingale consistently preferred the term ‘‘commission’’ to ‘‘committee’’ (see p 514 below). Obviously both commissions or committees were directly involved in the implementation of the reforms. Nightingale knew that, if the home commission were not put in place and established, ‘‘we are on the brink of ruin . . . , the royal commission had better not have been’’ (see p 227 below). She had no confidence that officials in India would act on key reforms without pressure from London. She quoted Douglas Galton to Lord Stanley that ‘‘they will spend the money so as to do harm, not good, if they are not advised by home experience’’ (see p 228 below). She pointed out further to Lord Stanley that the halving of the mortality rate at stations other than the ones in India had been achieved by sanitary works being carefully examined in London at the War Office and then returned. ‘‘This is what is wanted for India’’ (see p 229 below). Still better, all plans and proposals for sanitary improvements should be sent directly to the India Office itself for examination and then sent back to India. In India each of the three presidencies (Bengal, Madras, Bombay) formed a sanitary commission as early as 1864 to relay the ‘‘suggestions...

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