Florence NIGHTINGALE
12th May 1820 – 13th August 1910
Death of . Mira Florence Nightingale, the heroine of the Crimean War Nnnung Service, died her rendence, 10. Sooth Street, London, somewhat unexpectedly on Saturday afternoon. The canse of death was heart failnre. Two her relatives were present when Miss Nightingale passed away. She had received every attention and had been tinder tho constant supervision of her own doctor. Sir Thomas Barlow. Deceased was in her year. The name of Florence Nightingale is one of the very few that is universally known and universally honoured. She was born m the month of May. 1820, at the Villa Colombia, near Florence, from which city she took her name, her childhood and girlhood being passed between her father’s two country houses. Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, and Embly Park, Hampshire, varied by sojourns in London and travels abroad. Wealthy and highly educated, she had at an early age devoted herself to the study of the relief of suffering, and had undergone an arduous training for that purpose. When the stirring appeal came for nuraes for the Crimea, Florence Nightingale was found already and willing to enter on that work for which a special providence seemed have been preparing her from childhood. With 38 other nurses she landed at Scutari in November, 1854, when matters were getting to their worst. The men were being sent down from the front to Balaclava, and thence to the fixed hospital at Scutari, and in both places they were dying like dies. Filth and disorder indescribable reigned everywhere in the so-called hospitals, and the bands of all the officials were tied by red tape. The simplest order could not be given without being signed and countersigned infinitum. Many were the tributes to her service. At the end of the campaign a dinner was given in London to a number of the most distinguished officers, and Lord Stratford suggested that it would be interesting to know who in the opinion of such a company was the person whose war time career would be longest remembered in English history. Each officer wrote his verdict on a slip of paper, and every slip bore just the two words, Florence Nightingale.” All Europe rang with her praise, and all England was keenly excited to give her a triumphant reception on her return. With characteristic modesty, sho evaded all demonstrations {though she could not but obey the summons to Windsor when the late Queen Victoria gave her the Cross of St. George). Presented with a testimonial of £50,000, she devoted the whole of this large sum to the foundation of the institute which bears her honoured name in connection with the St. Thomas’ Hospital—the Nightingale Institute for Norses. Indeed, it is not too much to say that Miss Nightingale was the originator of the most striking philanthropic feature of the age the feature that has supplied the whole country with bands of willing and devoted ladies who make it the mission of their lives to assuage the sufferings of the afflicted. Such work her’s deserved every recognition, and it was felicitous act of the late King in 1907 to confer upon her the Order of Merit. It was also a happy inspiration that the City of London conferred upon her the honorary freedom in 1908. But the greatest honour of. all her name is enshrined in history as one who did inestimable service to her country and to humanity. The funeral will take place on Saturday afternoon, in the Churchyard at West Wellow, Hants, where the remains of her father and mother lie. In accordance with the will of Miss Nightingale, the ceremony will he a strictly private one, and the number of people attending it will be limited.
Driffield Times – Saturday 20 August 1910
