The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 2 of 2

by Sir Edward Tyas Cook

V

The Egyptian campaign of 1882 called for female nurses, and Miss Nightingale worked at high pressure in selecting them, and arranging details of their outfit. “I have been working some days,” she told Mrs. Hawthorn (Aug. 3, 1882), “from 4.30 A.M. till 10 P.M.” Mrs. Deeble, of Netley, was in command of the female nursing corps, twenty-four strong, in which several old pupils of the Nightingale School at St. Thomas's were enrolled. They wrote repeatedly to their “Chief” at home, and she sent them constant messages of advice and encouragement. “A thousand thanks for your dear kind letter, which seems to have given me fresh vigour to combat against our many difficulties.” “How good and kind you are to send me that welcome telegram. A few words now and then from you are so cheering.” There are hundreds of such notes. The spirit of an old campaigner revived in Miss Nightingale as she read of stirring deeds, whether earlier in South Africa or now in Egypt. Nor had her “children” in the army altogether forgotten their old friend. There were four men, wounded at Majuba, who were detained for some weeks in hospital at Netley. They spent their time of convalescence in making a patchwork quilt, and asked that it should be sent from them “to Florence Nightingale.” In November 1882 the Guards began to return from Egypt. A regiment of them (Grenadiers) was under the command of Colonel Philip Smith, a nephew of Sir Harry Verney, who persuaded Miss Nightingale to drive to the station to see their arrival. She was deeply moved:—

November 13 [1882]. For the first time for 25 years I went out to see a sight—to Victoria Station to see the return of the Foot Guards. Anybody might have been proud of these men's appearance—like shabby skeletons, or at least half their former size—in worn but well-cleaned campaigning uniform;[336] not spruce or showy, but alert, silent, steady. And not a man of them all, I am sure, but thought he had nothing in what he had done to be proud of; tho' we might well be proud of them. Royalty was there with its usual noble simplicity to bid them an unobtrusive welcome. The men, not the Royalty, were to be all in all on that occasion. A more deeply felt and less showy scene could not have been imagined.

So Miss Nightingale noted at the time, and presently she included her description in one of the letters which she sent every now and then at the Commanding Officer's request for him to read out to the men of the Volunteer Corps at Romsey, near her old home. She used the incident again in an address to the Nightingale Probationers (1883). A few days later (Nov. 18, 1882) there was a Royal Review, on the Horse Guards Parade, of the troops returned from the Egyptian campaign, and Miss Nightingale was present, at Mr. Gladstone's invitation, on a stand erected in the Prime Minister's garden. She was seated between him and Mrs. Gladstone, and Mrs. Gladstone, in recalling the occasion, used to say that “there were tears in Miss Nightingale's dear eyes as the poor ragged fellows marched past.” Her presence on this occasion was observed, and she was invited accordingly to attend the opening of the new Law Courts by the Queen (Dec. 4). She was given a place on the dais, and the Queen, noticing her, sent a message to say “how pleased she was to see Miss Nightingale there, looking well.”

Lord Wolseley's Egyptian campaign of 1882 was short and sharp, and from the combative point of view admirably managed, but there was a good deal of sickness among the soldiers. The fighting during these years (1880–82), both in South Africa and in Egypt, put to the test the re-organizations of the Army Medical and Hospital Service which had taken place since Miss Nightingale was “in office” with Sidney Herbert. The result of the test was far from satisfactory. There were, indeed, no scandals on the scale of the Crimean War, and the death-rate during the Egyptian campaign may fairly be cited as proof that great improvements had been effected since that time.[202] But there were grave defects, and Miss Nightingale played an active part both in bringing them to light and in striving for their prevention in future. She was in close touch with the hospital arrangements both in Natal and in Egypt through her friends among the lady nurses and lady visitors. From Natal, one of the latter, Mrs. Hawthorn, had sent her many particulars, supported by evidence, of neglect in the hospitals. Miss Nightingale wrote a memorandum on the subject, which she submitted, again through Sir Harry Verney, to the Secretary for War. Mr. Childers appointed a Court of Inquiry (June 1882), presided over by Sir Evelyn Wood, to investigate the charges. The Committee reported that “improvements in the system of nursing are both practicable and desirable.” “This is rather a mild opinion,” wrote Sir Robert Loyd Lindsay (Lord Wantage) to Miss Nightingale (Oct. 23, 1882), “considering that all the independent evidence went to show that the orderlies were often drunk and riotous, that they ate the rations of the sick, and left the nursing of the patients to the convalescents.” The Egyptian campaign followed, and many cases of neglect were alleged. The Committee was reconstituted (Oct. 1882) on an enlarged basis, under the chairmanship of the Earl of Morley, with instructions to inquire, with special reference to the Egyptian campaign, into the organization of the Army Hospital Corps and the whole question of hospital management and nursing in the field. Miss Nightingale had a close ally during this inquiry in Lord Wantage, who was a member of the Committee. She suggested witnesses to him; and sent him elaborate briefs for their examination. She was furnished day by day with the minutes of evidence; and when the time came for preparing the Report, she wrote successive papers of suggestions, which Lord Wantage submitted to the Chairman. “I think,” wrote Lord Wantage (May 5, 1883), “that the Report, although dealing with details, and not going much beyond them, will be of service. And I am bound to say many of the best suggestions come from you, and for these I beg to thank you most sincerely”; and, again, in sending her an early proof of the Report (June 12): “I can only repeat once more how valuable your aid was to me during the enquiry. If the Secretary of State carries out the Report, some of the most useful improvements will have originated with you.”

Miss Nightingale found in the evidence a justification of her forebodings during past years. It disclosed evils comparable in kind, though not in extent, to those at Scutari and in the Crimea.[203] Supplies procurable had not been procured. Hospital equipment was incomplete. The cooking was defective, and so forth. These defects were due, Miss Nightingale considered, to the undoing of Sidney Herbert's work. The Purveyor's Department, reorganized by him and her, had been abolished. For the rest, their whole scheme of reorganization had been based on the regimental system, which had now been abandoned for a unitary system, though in time of war some return to the former was a necessity. Miss Nightingale did not wholly condemn these changes in themselves. What she complained of was that they had not been thought out in all the details or in terms of war. This was what she meant when she noted the progress of reorganization during previous years, and pronounced it lacking in administrative skill.[204] She now said that the changes must be accepted, and threw herself into the work of lending aid towards improvement. She saw and corresponded with the Director-General of the Army Medical Department, Dr. T. Crawford, than whom, she said, “we have not had such a man of unflagging energy since Alexander.”[205] She made friends with many other army doctors. Among them was Surgeon-Major G. J. H. Evatt, who had seen service in India, and was now at the Royal Military Academy. He assisted Miss Nightingale in suggestions for the reorganization of the Army Hospital Corps in India, which she sent to Lord Ripon. She was consulted on revised regulations for various branches of the medical service. She was in constant communication with her old associates, Captain Galton and Dr. Sutherland, and she urged the former to keep the question of reform to the front by writing in the papers and magazines.

VI

In the middle of 1883 Miss Nightingale was in the thick of her two main preoccupations—the defence of Lord Ripon's Indian policy and the reform of the Army Hospital Service—when an opportunity came to her for putting in a word on behalf of each of these causes in the highest quarter. The decoration of the Royal Red Cross had been instituted by Royal Warrant on April 23, 1883, and Miss Nightingale's attendance was requested at Windsor on July 5 to receive the decoration for her “special exertions in providing for the nursing of the sick and wounded soldiers and sailors.” She was invited to dine and sleep at the castle on the occasion. The Queen, whose observant eye had noticed at the opening of the Law Courts that Miss Nightingale was attended by Sir Harry Verney, hoped that he would again accompany her. The state of her health compelled Miss Nightingale to decline the invitation[206]; with the greater reluctance because there were two subjects—India and the Army Medical Service—on which the Queen had permitted her to speak on a previous occasion and on which she would now have highly prized the opportunity of speaking again. She begged to be permitted to write to Her Majesty instead. The permission was given, and Miss Nightingale sent a letter upon the state of the Army Medical and Hospital Services. A second letter contained an expository vindication of Lord Ripon's Indian measures. In this connection it had been intimated to Miss Nightingale by a friend that she would do well to describe in a few words what the Ilbert Bill really was. The Queen had doubtless read voluminous dispatches “about it and about,” and perhaps been addressed on the subject by copious Ministers “as if she were a public meeting,” and like the greater number of her subjects may have felt little the wiser. Miss Nightingale condensed into the following words the nature of the Bill and the case for it: “The so-called ‘Ilbert Bill’ is intended to give limited powers to try Europeans, outside of the Presidency towns, to Native Magistrates and Judges who, after long trial of their judicial qualification, in corresponding positions, have shown themselves worthy to be entrusted with this duty and have risen to that grade where for their official responsibility such powers are required. It is no new experiment, but has been tried on the Bench of the High Courts and in the Chief Magistracies of the Presidency towns.” Miss Nightingale then went on to refer to the Queen's “noble proclamation” of 1858, and to connect the Ilbert Bill with it. “The Queen has proclaimed that she will admit the natives of India to share in the government of that country without distinction of race and creed. She has invited them to educate themselves to qualify for her service as Englishmen do. In face of the greatest difficulties they have in competition with our ablest young men gained honourable place, and by trial in long service have proved themselves efficient and trustworthy.” It would be disastrous, Miss Nightingale went on to argue, if, in deference to clamour, the Queen's Government were to draw back from giving effect to Her Majesty's gracious assurances:—

(Sir Henry Ponsonby to Miss Nightingale.) Osborne, August 13 [1883]. The Queen hopes you will forgive her for not answering your letters herself. Her Majesty has been so constantly interrupted in writing that she has entrusted to me the duty of conveying to you her thanks for the two very interesting communications you have been good enough to address to Her Majesty.