Florence Nightingale Museum

Photo credit - Joyofmuseums

Resided inside St Thomas’ Hospital, where she established her nursing school in 1860, the Florence Nightingale Museum celebrates and honors the life and work of the founder of modern nursing.

The Florence Nightingale Museum Trust opened the museum in 1989 and has been running it since. Through three pavilions, the museum follows Nightingale’s life, from her aristocratic upbringing, her journey to becoming a nurse, her work during the Crimean War, and her campaigns for better healthcare and improving the practices and reputation of nursing.

The collection holds many of Nightingale’s personal items, including her pet owl, the medicine chest she took to Crimea, and the iconic lamp which earned her the nickname “The Lady With The Lamp”. There are also artifacts related to nursing history, such as a Register of Nurses that lists women who served under Nightingale in the military hospital in Crimea. The museum archives preserve approximately 800 letters Nightingale wrote and a rare book collection.

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was born in an upper-class family. She was a compassionate child and supported the poor and the ill in the nearby village. At 30, she went to study nursing in Germany, and on her return, she took a job as a nurse at a hospital in London; within a year, she got promoted to head of nursing. During the Crimean War, the British Army recruited her to reorganize and operate the hospital in Scutari. There, she supervised the nurses, attended to the wounded soldiers, and improved the hygiene and sanitation conditions.

She promoted the importance of mental health to recovery, so at night she walked the wards, holding her lamp and keeping company with her patients. After only six months, she reduced the hospital’s mortality rate from 42% to 2%.

She returned to England as a hero and received a medal and a grant from Queen Victoria. She used the funds to establish the Nightingale School of Nursing at St. Thomas’ Hospital. In this hospital, she redefined the nursing profession, modernized its working methods, and introduced it as a respectable job for women. She also campaigned for healthcare reforms and assisted in establishing other health facilities and programs, including the midwives’ school at King’s College Hospital and the district nursing training program for improving home health care for the poor.

Outside St Thomas’ Hospital stands the statue of Mary Seacole, a pioneer nurse and businesswoman who served as an independent nurse during the Crimean War. Upon its dedication in June 2016, it was the first statue of a black woman ever erected in the UK.

A statue of Nightingale is located just across the Thames in Waterloo Place. Nearby worth vising sites include Westminster Abbey, the Palace of Westminster, Big Ben, and the Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens.

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