While there was a large majority to wish God-speed to the enterprise, there were also many people who considered it an improper thing for women to nurse in a military hospital, while others thought it nonsense for young ladies to attempt “to nurse soldiers when they did not even yet know what it was to nurse a baby.” Others predicted that no woman could stand the strain of work in an Eastern hospital, that the scheme would prove futile, and all the nurses be invalided home after a month’s experience.
The undertaking was so new, and so much at variance with English custom and tradition, that criticism was to be expected. But Florence Nightingale was one of those lofty souls who listen to the voice within, and take little heed of the voices without. It was for her to break down the “Chinese wall” of prejudices, religious, social, and professional, and establish a precedent for all time.
In the midst of the pleasantries, satire, and condemnation she placidly pursued the work of organising her band, having indefatigable assistants in Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Herbert. Applications were made for volunteer nurses to the few nursing institutions which existed, and advertisements were put in The Record and The Guardian. A bewildering number of fair applicants besieged the War Office, and Sidney Herbert was driven to make a little proclamation to the effect that “many ladies whose generous enthusiasm prompts them to offer services as nurses are little aware of the hardships they would have to encounter, and the horrors they would have to witness. Were all accepted who offer,” he added with a touch of grim humour, “I fear we should have not only many indifferent nurses, but many hysterical patients.”
This astute Minister was very cautious about the admission of society ladies in the guise of amateur nurses into the military hospital. He managed things with a stricter hand than did the authorities during the South African War, as illustrated by the story of a soldier in the Capetown Hospital who, when a visiting lady asked if he would like her to wash his face, replied, “Excuse me, miss, but I’ve already promised fourteen ladies as they shall wash my face!”
The first appeal for nurses did not bring satisfactory applicants. Kind, generous, and sympathetic women volunteered by the score, but Miss Nightingale and her friends felt that they were dealing with a crisis of urgency. There was no time to start ambulance classes and train candidates. It was an imperative necessity that the nurses should start without delay, and therefore they must have been already trained for the work. In the emergency Miss Nightingale applied to both Protestant and Roman Catholic institutions for volunteers. This caused a good deal of adverse criticism. The “No Popery” cry was raised, and zealous clerics inveighed against Miss Nightingale as a Puseyite who was bent on perverting the British soldier to papacy. She certainly was at the time more engaged with the bodily than with the spiritual needs of the soldiers. Nurses were required, not religious instructors.
With some of the Protestant institutions a difficulty arose in respect to the rule of strict obedience to Miss Nightingale as the Superintendent appointed by the Government. These institutions were unwilling that their members should be separated from home control. Miss Nightingale and her advisers remained firm on this point. Strict obedience was the pivot upon which the organisation would have to work, if it was to be successful. The military nurse, like the military man, must render obedience to her superior officer. The St. John’s House, one of the most important of the Protestant sisterhood, stood out for a day or two, but finally yielded the point.
The Roman Catholic bishop at once agreed to the regulations laid down, and signed a paper agreeing that the sisters of mercy joining the expedition should give entire obedience to Miss Nightingale, and that they should not enter into religious discussion except with the soldiers of their own faith. Mutual arrangement was made that the Roman Catholic sisters should attend on the soldiers of their own faith, and the Protestant sisters on those of their faith.
The position was later defined by Mr. Sidney Herbert to allay the agitation which prevailed after the band had set forth. He said: “The Roman Catholic bishop has voluntarily, and in writing, released the benevolent persons who were previously under his control from all subjection to himself. Englishmen may have the pleasure of feeling that a number of kind-hearted British women, differing in faith, but wishing to do practical good, are gone in one ship, as one corps, with one aim, without any compromise of our national Protestantism.... Thirty-eight nurses on their way to Scutari are truer successors of the Apostles shipwrecked at Melita than an equal number of cardinals. May the war teach men many such lessons.”
The thirty-eight nurses selected to accompany Miss Nightingale as the first contingent were made up of fourteen Church of England sisters, taken from St. John’s House and Miss Sellon’s Home; ten Roman Catholic sisters of mercy; three nurses selected by Lady Maria Forrester, who had first formed a plan for sending nurses to Scutari; and eleven selected from among miscellaneous applicants. Miss Nightingale’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge of Atherstone Hall, and a clergyman and courier accompanied the expedition. It started from London on the evening of October 21st, 1854.
Our heroine has ever been one of those who shunned the glare of publicity, and it was characteristic of her that she set forth with her devoted band under cover of night. Only a few relations and friends stood on the platform of the terminus on that October evening when Florence Nightingale bade farewell to home and kindred and started on her great mission, the magnitude and difficulty of which she had yet to discover. Quietly dressed in black, plain as a Quakeress, she was yet a striking figure. As the last hand-shake was given and the last farewells said her beautiful face retained its calm demeanour and was illumined by a sweet smile. Ever thoughtful for others, her chief wish was to spare her nearest and dearest, who had yielded a hesitating consent to her undertaking, from anxiety. None knew better than herself the perils which lay in those far-off Eastern hospitals.