Florence NIGHTINGALE
The Real Florence Nightingale.
was tbe fat© “of Florence Nightingale become, as Mr, Jowett one© told her, legend in her liietime. all of us, more or less, the truth of this remark must go. home, for to young and old Florence Nightingale was The Lady with the Lamp,” the ministering angel, who, suffer- ing privations herself, heroically tended our wounded soldiers in the Crimea. most of she was this and little more, even to us who live within few miles of her old non\e at. Lea Hurst,, that beautiful house high-up the banks the Derwent. How far short the legendary Florence Nightingale vfaHs from the real, Sir Edward Cook reteate to in his great work has this lady to follow the course which mad© her famous, that her presence and work in the terrible war in: the middle of- last century was but laeident—true, a remarkable incident a remarkable career, that the legend of Florence Nightingale fixed quite early in her life, at a time, indeed, antecedent to that at which.-m her own view at any rate, her best work had begum This is largely explained by Sir Edward Cook s oWn remark, the very opening of his preface, in which he says that “men and women are divided, in relation to their papers, into hoarders and scatterers. Miss Nightingale was-a hoarder, and as she lived to-be i) 0, the accumulation of papers stored €i£ her house at timejof her death was very great.” Indeed, she mad© will by which she directed that all her letters, papers, and manuscripts with certain -.spehuEc exceptions, were , be. destroy ed. Fortunately for the country, she changed her mind, and subsequently bequeathed these letters, papers, and manuscripts to her cousin, Mr. Henry Bonham Carter. These documents fortn chiefly the mirror in which, the help of Sir EHWard Cook’s able pen, we are allowed to view the life of this great lady it really was. ESrly Day* at Lea Hurst. We in Derbyshire are naturally meet deeply interested in her associations with l>a-lfnrst. Her father came of the old Derbyshire fapiily of Shore, of Tap ton, bat in 18*15 hb changed bis name from William Edward Shore to William Edward Nightingide, on succeeding to the property of his mother’s uncle. Peter Nightingale, of Lea. H» was fond travel, and it was in Ptorence, l2th, 1820, that his famous daughter, who was named after her birthplace, waa. born- In the following year the fafffily returned to England, and, in considering the •qneetiou of where to live, William Edward Nightingale decided that would build’ Lea Hurst, sbort distance from Lea Hall, which he had inherited, and ivbich is now used farmhouse. To Lea Hurst Florence Nightingale became greatly attached, and even when in Scutari, the sound storm the Straits, she liked to hear the ceaseless roar which put her mind of “ the dear Derwent,” to which she had listened «o often from her nursery win- dear/ * . _ , Florence’s edncation was etwrvised Her father, an accomplished scholar, and at the age of nineteen she was “well fitted oacture and an ornament any country house.” Bh© moved good deal amongst accomplished people, her friends in Derbyshire including the Strutts and Richard Monckton Milnee, but even at this time her particular bent itself, and, says her biographer, A friend who visited at Lea Hujst recalls how Florence would often le missing the evening, and search being made ehe would found in the village, sitting the bedside of some sick person, and saying she not sit down to a grand seven o’clock dinner while this was on. When she was twenty-fonr, the idea of nursing had gained hold of her mind, abb mentioned it a medical friend, who told her that he did not think it would be *’ terrible thing.” as she seemed imagine it would, if she took up this work. Two rears later she wrote: “I am *l™o«t bxjfrken-hearted to leave Lea Hurst. There are many duties there which lie near at hand, and I could well content to them there all the davs of lifo. In religious matters Florence .Nightingale framed a creed her own, and towards the Church England she had grudge that whilst it had bishoprics, archbishoprics, and little work for men, it gave scope to women. ” She told me. she wrote of the Church, “to go back and crochet mother’s dr«-wing~rooro;_or, if I were tiied of look veil thf head of husband s table. Not that she despised the domestic life, but her.soul crved for wid’r She riever married, DoS’SW^Ed-A: Cook shows, because she labked nor even that she was not drawn towards an admirer, but because, her own words, nailed to a continuation and exaggeration of iif?, without hbne another, would be intolerable to me. Marriage with such consequences struck her as ” like suicide.” to be continued
Derbyshire Courier – Saturday 22 November 1913
