The Florence Nightingale statue is one of the statues in the Guards Crimean War Memorial at Waterloo Place. It commemorates the devotion and contribution of the social reformer and the founder of modern nursing.
The memorial was dedicated in 1861, and Nightingale’s bronze statue was added on 24 February 1915. Arthur George Walker sculpted it; he is the sculptor of the marble memorial relief of Nightingale for the crypt of St Paul’s and the Louisa Aldrich-Blake memorial.
Nightingale is depicted at age 36, her age at the Crimean War, holding her iconic lamp, as she did during her night rounds at the hospital. Four bronze reliefs on the granite pedestal show scenes of her at work – advising in the hospital at Scutari, attending wounded soldiers on their arrival, in a meeting at the War Office, and old age surrounded by nurses.
A smaller version of the statue is part of the Government Art Collection in Downing Street.
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was born into a British aristocratic family. Her compassion for others was evident from an early age when she supported the ill and poor people in the nearby village. Nightingale got four months of medical training in Germany in 1850. On her return, she began exercising her new skills, and three years later, was appointed as superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London.
In 1854, a year after the Crimean War broke out, she was asked to lead a delegation of nurses to Scutari to organize the hospital and tend the wounded soldiers. During the days, she supervised her crew of nurses, worked on improving the hygiene and sanitation conditions of the hospital, and took care of the physical and psychological needs of the wounded soldiers. During the nighttime, she walked the wards with her lamp, talking and mentally supporting her patients, who gave her the nickname “The Lady with the Lamp.” Within six months of her arrival, the mortality rate in the hospital reduced from 42% to 2%.
In recognition of her tireless work during the war, she was awarded an engraved brooch from Queen Victoria and a prize of $250,000 from the British government, which she used to establish the Nightingale School of Nursing at St. Thomas’ Hospital. Opened in 1860, her hospital redefined the nursing profession and working methods and established nursing as a respectable job for women. Nightingale also promoted and funded numerous healthcare reforms and facilities, such as the district nursing training program for improving home health care for the poor and the midwives’ school at King’s College Hospital.
Close to the Crimean Memorial are many statues and historic locations, such as the Edith Cavell Memorial at St. Martin’s Place, the Fourth Plinth and Nelson’s Column at Trafalgar Square, The Women of World War II monument at Whitehall, the Mother and Child statue at St. James’s Square, St. James’s Palace, and St. James’s Church.
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