Florence Nightingale, under a carefully preserved incognito, arrived quietly at Whatstandwell, the nearest station to her Derbyshire home, on August 8th, 1856, and succeeded in making her way unrecognised to Lea Hurst. According to local tradition she entered by the back door, and the identity of the closely veiled lady in black was first discovered by the old family butler. The word quickly circulated round Lea and the adjacent villages that “Miss Florence had come back from the wars,” and dearly would the good people have liked to light a bonfire on Crich Stand or some other available height to testify their joy, but all demonstration was checked by the knowledge that Miss Florence wanted to remain quiet.
During the ensuing weeks hundreds of people from the surrounding towns of Derby, Nottingham, and Manchester, and from more distant parts, crowded the roads to Lea Hurst and stood in groups about the park, hoping to catch a glimpse of the heroine. “I remember the crowds as if it was yesterday,” said an old lady living by the park gate, “it took me all my time to answer them. Folks came in carriages and on foot, and there was titled people among them, and a lot of soldiers, some of them without arms and legs, who had been nursed by Miss Florence in the hospital, and I remember one man who had been shot through both eyes coming and asking to see Miss Florence. But not ten out of the hundreds who came got a glimpse of her. If they wanted help about their pensions, they were told to put it down in writing and Miss Florence’s maid came with an answer. Of course she was willing to help everybody, but it stood to reason she could not receive them all; why, the park wouldn’t have held the folks that came, and besides, the old squire wouldn’t have his daughter made a staring stock of.”
THE CARRIAGE USED BY MISS NIGHTINGALE IN THE CRIMEA.
[To face p. 240.
London shared the disappointment of Derbyshire in not being permitted to give Florence Nightingale a public welcome, but the situation was realised by the genial Mr. Punch in the sympathetic lines quoted at the heading of this chapter.
Punch had had his joke when the “dear Nightingales” first went to the succour of the soldiers, but the day for raillery was past; a great humanitarian work had been accomplished, which the genial humorist was quick to acknowledge on the return of the heroine in a cartoon showing “Mr. Punch’s design for a statue to Miss Nightingale.” It represented her in nurse’s dress, wearing the badge “Scutari” across her breast, and holding a wounded soldier by the hand. Below was a scene portraying the good Samaritan.
The public interest in Miss Nightingale was testified in many ways. Not only did platforms all over the land resound with her praises, but her portrait became a popular advertisement for tradesmen. I have seen preserved in the Derby Town Library paper bags used in the shops of Henry Calvert, grocer, Hulme, the tobacconist, and Bryer, provision merchant, Derby, decorated with portraits of Florence Nightingale. Playbills displayed the heroine’s name, beside Romeo and Juliet, songs and musical compositions were dedicated to the “good angel of Derbyshire.” There was the “Nightingale Varsoviana” and “The Song of the Nightingale,” published with a full-page picture of the heroine on the cover. Almanacks displayed her portrait and ballads innumerable told of her gentle deeds. Street minstrels found a Nightingale song the most remunerative piece in their repertoire, and people who had hitherto been guiltless of versifying were compelled to satisfy an importunate muse by writing verses on Florence Nightingale. Broadsheet ballads were sung and sold in the streets, and the following extract is from one emanating from Seven Dials:—
When sympathy first in thy fair breast did enter,
The world must confess ’twas a noble idea,