Honour the charge made,
Honour the Light Brigade
Noble six hundred!”
Florence Nightingale is the immortal, as she was the most interesting figure of the Crimean war, and every school child knows her name. Millions of people throughout the world recognized her as “the Angel of the Crimea,” although they have never heard the name of the commander of the Light Brigade or the names of the generals-in-chief of either army. And I do not believe that one man or woman out of a thousand to-day can tell who commanded the British troops or the French allies; I doubt if one in ten thousand could give the name of the Russian general commander-in-chief; but the fame of Florence Nightingale is universal. She was the first woman to take up professional nursing; the first to follow an army into action, to nurse the sick and to bind up the wounds of the fallen. She was the only woman who ever received the Order of Merit of Great Britain, the most exclusive and highly prized decoration, with the exception of the Victoria Cross, that can be bestowed by the king of England. The membership of the order is limited to twenty-four and includes such men as Earl Roberts, Lord Kitchener, John Morley, James Bryce, Lord Kelvin, George Meredith, and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
Florence Nightingale died Aug. 14, 1910, at the advanced age of ninety years three months and two days. She lived at Chelsea, one of the outlying parishes of London, and although her body showed the infirmities of age, her mind was as bright and her sympathies as active as they were when she won the title of “Angel of the Crimea” in 1855–56.
CHAPTER XV
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE AND HER WORK
In September, 1854, after the battle of Alma, the English newspapers were filled with complaints and protests concerning the treatment of the sick and the wounded in the Crimea, and Sir Robert Peel started a relief fund which amounted to nearly $60,000. Lord Sidney Herbert, secretary of war, asked Florence Nightingale if she would go to Turkey with a party of nurses and carry out the scheme of relief proposed by the contributors to the fund. It is a singular fact that his letter was crossed in the mails by one from Miss Nightingale volunteering her services, not as a leader or director of the movement, but as an ordinary nurse.
Miss Nightingale was then a little more than thirty-four years old. She was the youngest daughter of William Shore Nightingale, a descendant of a famous old Derbyshire family of considerable wealth, and her mother was the daughter of William Smith, a practical philanthropist, an associate of Wilberforce in the abolition of slavery, in prison reforms, and similar movements, and for many years a member of the House of Commons.
Miss Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy, May 12, 1820; hence her name. From early childhood, she had been associated with philanthropic movements in which her father and grandfather were engaged, and natural inclination as well as deep sympathy with distress led her to give her entire time to benevolent work instead of seeking social enjoyment and distinction. During her girlhood she had been thoroughly educated, was familiar with the classics and modern languages, and was one of the first women anywhere to take up the study of medicine.