50 Fun Facts About Florence Nightingale

By what nickname did Florence Nightingale become an icon of Victorian culture?

It came from a Times report describing her solitary night rounds with a little lamp.

During which war did Nightingale come to prominence?

Britain and France had entered the war against Russia on the side of the Ottoman Empire.

Nightingale was named after her birthplace. Where was she born?

Her older sister Parthenope was named after the Greek settlement on the site of Naples.

What was Nightingale's father's surname at birth, before he inherited an estate?

William Edward Shore took the Nightingale name on inheriting the Lea estate from Peter Nightingale.

Which of these subjects did Nightingale's father include in his daughters' unusually advanced curriculum?

He also taught them French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek and constitutional history.

How old was Nightingale when she experienced what she called her first call from God to service?

It happened on 7 February 1837, though the call did not say what form the service should take.

Which politician and poet courted Nightingale for nine years before she turned him down?

She was convinced marriage would interfere with her calling to nursing.

Which politician, met on his 1847 honeymoon, became her lifelong friend and sent her to the Crimea?

As Secretary of War he authorised her mission; some accused her of hastening his death in 1861 by overworking him.

What kind of pet did Nightingale rescue from tormenting children in Athens and carry in her pocket?

She named it Athena; it died shortly before she left for the Crimea.

At which German religious community did Nightingale receive four months of medical training in 1850-51?

Her anonymous report on the institution was her first published work.

What was Nightingale's job from August 1853 until she left for the war?

Her father gave her an income of £500 a year, letting her pursue a career.

How many women volunteer nurses accompanied Nightingale to the Ottoman Empire in October 1854?

They included her aunt Mai Smith and head nurse Eliza Roberts, plus 15 Catholic nuns.

Where was the military hospital in which Nightingale worked during the war?

It was in the Selimiye Barracks, about 295 nautical miles from the main British camp at Balaklava.

Which engineer was commissioned to design a prefabricated hospital after Nightingale's plea to The Times?

Renkioi Hospital had a death rate less than a tenth of Scutari's.

How many British soldiers died at Scutari during Nightingale's first winter there?

Ten times more died of typhus, typhoid, cholera and dysentery than of wounds.

What did the government's Sanitary Commission do at Scutari in March 1855 that sharply cut death rates?

Nightingale never claimed credit for the fall in deaths herself.

Which nurse and hotel-keeper in the Crimea reportedly had a frosty relationship with Nightingale?

Seacole's own memoir records only one friendly meeting, when Nightingale gave her a bed for the night.

What nickname did troops give Nightingale after she broke into locked storerooms for medicine?

The Times correspondent thought it unladylike and popularised the lamp version instead.

Which American poet's 1857 poem 'Santa Filomena' helped popularise her famous nickname?

The phrase originated in a report in The Times.

Where in London did Nightingale open the world's first secular nursing school in 1860?

It is now the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery at King's College London.

How much money did the Nightingale Fund raise for her to set up the nursing school?

The fund was established at a public meeting in the Crimea in November 1855.

What was the title of Nightingale's 1859 book that became the cornerstone of training for her profession?

It was written for people nursing at home, but sold well to the general public.

Where did the first trained Nightingale nurses begin work in May 1865?

Introducing trained nurses into the workhouse system meant sick paupers were no longer nursed by other paupers.

Which gin-drinking Dickens nurse was said to be only a mild exaggeration of nursing before Nightingale?

She appears in Martin Chuzzlewit as incompetent, negligent, alcoholic and corrupt.

Which American, mentored by Nightingale in the 1870s, is called 'America's first trained nurse'?

Richards went on to found nursing schools in the US and Japan.

In 1907 Nightingale became the first woman to receive which honour?

She had been the first recipient of the Royal Red Cross in 1883.

What type of chart is Nightingale famous for using to show causes of mortality among soldiers?

She called a compilation of them a 'coxcomb' and used them to persuade MPs who would not read statistical tables.

Of which learned body did Nightingale become the first female member in 1859?

She became an honorary member of the American Statistical Association in 1874.

To what did British soldier mortality in India fall per 1,000 after ten years of Nightingale's reforms?

She lobbied for a Royal Commission in 1858-59 and studied sanitation in rural life there.

What is the title of Nightingale's best-known feminist essay, protesting the 'over-feminisation' of women?

Elaine Showalter called it 'a link between Wollstonecraft and Woolf'.

Which pioneering computer programmer was among Nightingale's friends?

On Lovelace's death at 36, Nightingale wrote of 'the tremendous vitality of the brain, that would not die'.

From 1857 Nightingale was often bedridden; which illness did a later biography blame?

It may have stemmed from 'Crimean fever' in May 1855; others have suggested chronic fatigue syndrome.

Which retail innovation did the bedridden Nightingale use to buy flannel?

Welsh entrepreneur Pryce Pryce-Jones used her name in his advertising.

How old was Nightingale when she died in her sleep in London in August 1910?

Her relatives declined a Westminster Abbey burial; her grave in Hampshire bears only her initials and dates.

Where is Nightingale buried?

A Carrara marble monument to her was placed in the cloister of Santa Croce in Florence in 1913.

On what date is International Nurses Day celebrated each year?

The Florence Nightingale Medal, awarded by the Red Cross every two years, is nursing's highest international distinction.

On what is the Nightingale Pledge, recited by new US nurses since 1893, modelled?

It is a statement of the ethics and principles of nursing.

On which Bank of England banknote did Nightingale appear from 1975 to 1994?

Before 2002 she was the only woman other than monarchs ever to appear on British paper money.

What is preserved in the British Library Sound Archive from 1890?

Made for the Light Brigade Relief Fund, it says: 'God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava'.

Why are photographs of Nightingale so rare?

An 1858 photo of her reading at Embley Park was only discovered in 2006.

Which actress played Nightingale in the 1951 Herbert Wilcox film about her?

Kay Francis had played her in 1936's The White Angel; Edith Evans took the stage role in 1929.

What was named after Nightingale during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The first NHS Nightingale Hospital was housed in the ExCeL London; Scotland's was named for Louisa Jordan.

Which US Air Force aircraft, based on the DC-9, carried the name 'Nightingale' from 1968 to 2005?

A US Navy ship, the USS Florence Nightingale, had been commissioned in 1942.

What was named 3122 Florence in 1981?

A KLM airliner also carried her name for 20 years.

Where did Nightingale rank in the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons?

The Japanese public ranked her 17th among historical persons in a 2006 poll.

Which country's president gives a National Florence Nightingale Award to nurses each year?

Nightingale campaigned for decades on Indian sanitation and hunger relief.

What was the name of Nightingale's older sister, also named after a place?

Parthenope was named partly after the Greek settlement on the site of Naples, just as Florence took her name from her birthplace.

What did Nightingale name the pet owl she rescued in Athens?

The owl travelled in her pocket for years and died shortly before she left for the Crimea.

In which Hampshire estate, bought by her father in 1825, did the Nightingale family spend much of its time?

The family split its year between Embley and Lea Hurst in Derbyshire; the rare 1858 photograph of Nightingale shows her reading outside Embley.

What did Nightingale's relatives decline on her behalf after her death in 1910?

She was instead buried near Embley Park under a memorial carrying only her initials and dates; a Carrara marble monument was later placed in Florence's Santa Croce.