19. FLO: The Lowdown.

To whet the appetite of those interested in our forthcoming, exciting Route 1066 trip to visit the young Florence Nightingale in 1844 here is the lowdown on her:

1820

A daughter is born to Fanny and William Nightingale on May 12th at 5.37pm. The lamp follows at 5.44pm. She is named after the city of her birth, Florence in Italy.

1821

The affluent Nightingales return to England. Florence is raised in two houses, in Derbyshire and Hampshire. Both have cesspits, which makes them the effluent Nightingales too.

1824

Florence is considered ‘a bright pupil’ probably due to her lamp.

1837

In February, Florence gets her first call from God. A miraculous incident because the telephone isn’t invented for another four decades.

1841

Miss Nightingale becomes a great advocate of the pie chart, believing statistics are easier to present to the public if displayed in pie chart form. This was a slight variation on Sweeney Todd who presented his Chartist customers to the public in pie form.

1842

Florence is considered attractive and is romantically pursued by the politician and poet Richard Monckton Milnes. He worships the ground she stands on: this is because Miss Nightingale likes walking over the rubble of demolished churches. They have a nine year courtship during which he wages a fruitless battle to win her over from her calling of nursing.

This poem, composed by Milne towards the end of their courtship in 1851, encapsulates his frustrations:

FLORENCE  by Richard Monckton Milnes MP

Florence, Florence, the love of my life, 

I’d give you my heart if you would be my wife. 

   I’d present you my vessel of dedicated devotion,   

   Though you’d prefer a bottle of calamine lotion.

For nigh on a decade I’ve striven to be your master,

But you value more the staying power of a plaster.

You profess the desire to treat strange men in bed,

Though only if they be half dead!

1850

Florence visits a Lutheran religious community in Germany where the pastor and deaconesses do good work for the sick and deprived. It inspires her to write her first book The Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, etc. The publisher wanted a more catchy title, but feared had it been too catchy, Florence would’ve had it quarantined instead.

1853

Nightingale takes the post of superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street, London. She is discovered and promises to return all the superintendent’s mail.

1854

Reports reach Britain of the terrible conditions the wounded endure in the Crimean War. Nightingale buys the entire stock of a bandage salesman in Knightsbridge to help. Richard Monckton Milnes mishears this and thinks she has bought some stocks from a bondage salesman and curses himself for not suggesting  they try S-&-M during their long courtship.

On October 21st, Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 female volunteer nurses she has trained, leave for the Ottoman Empire. When they arrive some nurses are shocked to discover it isn’t a huge furniture storage sales room. Nightingale discovers poor care and hygiene and a lack of medical supplies. She implements hand washing and other hygienic sanitary practices to cut the appalling death rates amongst the war wounded.

Florence also takes the radical step of using a lamp at night on her rounds and encourages other nurses to follow her lead.

1855

Nightingale sends a plea to The Times for a Government solution to the poor facilities. This makes her name, and her lamp, well known and many say that they’ll get behind her, probably because street lighting wasn’t that great back then.

The Government commission Isambard Kingdom Brunel to design a prefabricated hospital that can be shipped out to the Dardanelles. This results in Renkioi Hospital that, with its better sanitation and improved ventilation along with hygienic measures introduced by Nightingale, sees death rates fall.

On November 29th, The Nightingale Fund is started with the purpose of training nurses.

1857

A year after the end of the Crimean War, the celebrated poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalises Florence Nightingale and her lamp with his poem Santa Filomena. 

1859

Nightingale writes Notes on Nursing aimed specifically at those who want to be a proficient nurse at home. In it she shares her acquired knowledge of how to combat the spread of disease through employing measures such as hygienic practices, good sanitation and quarantine. She further goes on to publish a sequel for those who don’t understand the swear words being hurled at them by a quarantined patient called Notes on Cursing.

1868

Forence Nightingale lobbies to strengthen the Public Health Bill to ensure that property owners are connected to the mains drainage system. This is later ammended to just connecting their properties as it’s easier because they’re more static.

1874

The Public Health Act enshrines several of Nightingale’s social reform recommendations into law.

1890

Florence Nightingale’s voice is recorded on the newly invented phonograph. It reaches Number One on the medical charts.

1893

The Nightingale Pledge is created, sworn by all newly qualified nurses.

1902

Forence Nightingale’s lamp is temporarily extinguished due to her protracted negotiations in switching energy providers.

1910

Nightingale dies on 13 August aged 90 in Mayfair.

1911

Florence’s lamp makes a special guest appearance at The Blackpool Illuminations.

1930

It becomes apparent that people are generally living twenty years longer than had been the case prior to the social and health reforms initiated by Nightingale as part of the Public Health Act 1874-75.

1940

Florence’s lamp is extinguished for the last time in compliance with blackout regulations.

1965

International Nurses Day is celebrated on what would’ve been Florence Nightingale’s birthday from this year onwards.

1975

Two images of Florence appear on the reverse of the Bank of England Ten Pound Note for the next nineteen years. For this reason, it was a good thing that she’d been born in Florence, Italy and not the Isle of Ust, as the notes would’ve then become confusingly known as The IOU Ten Pounds.