Daughter of England

The Life and Times of Florence Nightingale.

The Life and Times of Florence Nightingale.

In Daughter of England, the characters of Caroline Winther, Eric Carrywith, Dr. Morris, and Sister Agatha are of course purely fictional, but many of the people we met, like Florence Nightingale and Dr. Sutherland, or who were mentioned, such as John Hall and Lord Palmerston, were in fact real people of history. This is one of the beauties of Historical Fiction, weaving a story with fictional and real characters so intertwined, you make it seem like they all really existed.

Of course in reality there was no Caroline Winther who went to Scutari to be a nurse at the Barrack Hospital. Ahe an embodiment of the thirty eight young ladies who bravely left with Florence Nightingale to try and help the wounded and dying.

Florence Nightingale was born on the 12th of May, 1820. Her parents, William and Frances Nightingale were well to do, upper class people with good connections and a good name in society. Florence was well educated as a child, mainly by her father, and had all the comforts of a rich young girl in 19th century England. From a young age Florence felt that God was calling her to be a nurse and dedicating her life to serving others, her family did not approve of this idea. By the middle of the 19th century the idea of a working woman was nothing new. There were many occupations a girl could choose from, such as a schoolteacher, seamstress, hat maker, and of course scores of women worked in the many factories that had opened thanks to the industrial revolution.

However, these were all girls of the working class. Young ladies of the upper class and aristocracy were not expected to take on themselves any profession or work at any job. Young women of fashion were to spend their time perfecting their skills of drawing, dancing, singing, foreign languages and deportment in the hopes of catching a good husband. Once you were married, you became the mistress of a household, which meant you were to oversee all the workings of the house. What food was to be cooked, what needed to be bought, made sure the house was always in good order, and that the garden was tended to. Of course most women didn't do any of the actual work, there was the housekeeper and maids took care of everything, the mistress just did the overseeing and gave commands. Because of this, many girls, especially the ones who weren't married yet, had very little to do with their life, and as Florence Nightingale would later write, this boredom often led to idleness and laziness.  

For a long time Florence respected her family's disapproval of her calling, but in 1844 she told them that she planned to become a nurse. Even though her mother and older sister worked hard to stop her, Florence did not give up. She rebelled against the proper behavior of a young lady in society, and worked very hard in educating herself in the field of nursing. Mr. Nightingale was a little more supportive of his daughter's decision and paid her a hefty allowance, allowing her to live comfortably and pursue her calling.

Despite having good looks, Florence rejected many suitors, believing that marriage would distract her from her calling. Of course her most famous rejection was that of Richard Milnes, 1st Baron of Houghton, who had courted her for nine years.

Florence toured Europe in 1853-1845, studying in various places and at last, in 1854, at the age of 33 she became superintendent at a hospital for retired governesses.

Florence Nightingale is of course most famous for her work in the Crimean War that took place from March 1854 to May 1856.

The reports of the terrible conditions in the hospital at Scutari were making the general public very unhappy. Florence wrote a letter to the wife of Sydney Herbert, who was then Secretary of War, asking if perhaps she could be of some assistance. At the same time, Sydney Herbert, who was a good friend of Florence, wrote her a letter asking her to help. An interesting fact is that the letters actually crossed in the mail.