RECENT SPECIMEN OF MISS NIGHTINGALE’S HANDWRITING.
Miss Nightingale has continued to take an interest in the Hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen at Harley Street, where she worked so assiduously before going to the Crimea.
This most useful institution continues its efforts for the relief of sick ladies with unabated vigour, under the able Lady Superintendent, Miss Tidy, who has laboured at her post now for fourteen years. The home looks so bright and cheerful that it must have a very beneficial effect on the minds of those suffering women who seek its shelter. In the pretty reception-room stands the old-fashioned mahogany escritoire which Miss Nightingale used more than fifty years ago, when she voluntarily performed the drudgery of superintending the home. It was at this house in Harley Street that she stayed while organising her nursing band for the Crimea, and from it she set forth for her journey to the East.
MISS NIGHTINGALE’S OLD ROOM AT CLAYDON.
(Photo by Payne, Aylesbury.)
[To face p. 336.
In April, 1902, Margaret, Lady Verney laid the foundation stone of a new public library and village hall at Steeple Claydon. The cost of £1,500 was defrayed by Sir Edmund Verney. Miss Nightingale was much interested in the project and sent the following message to Sir Edmund and Lady Verney:—
“So glad the foundation stone is being laid of the Steeple Claydon Public Library. I do with all my heart wish it success, and think a public library is good for body and soul. That God’s blessing may rest upon it is the fervent wish of
“Florence Nightingale.”