Florence Nightingale rose to fame during the Crimean War, in which Britain, France and Turkey were fighting the Russians in the Crimean peninsular. Nightingale was a nurse based at the British army field hospital at Scutari in Turkey, where appalling conditions meant that more than four thousand soldiers died there during the Winter of 1854/1855 (the first Winter that Nightingale worked at the hospital). In fact, during the Crimean War ten times more soldiers died of illness than were killed in battle.

Witnessing the effects that poor hygiene, sanitation and ventilation had at the hospital in Scutari, Nightingale became a vocal proponent of better conditions in hospitals. The exact changes Nightingale made at Scutari, and the extent to which she was the driving force behind them, are still debated, but the evidence does suggest there was dramatic drop in death rates during her time there. The Crimean War was one of the first overseas conflicts where there was substantial media coverage in Britain, and the press elevated Nightingale to celebrity status, styling her the 'Lady with the Lamp'. Less well is known is Nightingale's prowess as a statistician - she was a pioneer of the now familiar 'pie chart'.

Whilst Nightingale herself did not claim credit for reducing death rates at Scutari, she did use her newfound fame to establish the 'Nightingale Fund', designed to pay for the training of nurses. In 1860 the Nightingale Training School, the first institution offering formal training for nurses, was established at St Thomas' Hospital in London using money from the Fund. The document shown here (ref: D/PAV/36) is a flyleaf from the front of The Practice of Medicine. The book belonged to Miss Girling, the first District Nurse to have qualified from the Nightingale Training School. The inscription, written and signed by Florence Nightingale herself reads:

And may all the highest

blessings be hers,

both here & hereafter

is the earnest prayer of

Florence Nightingale

I give you joy for past successes

in the great work of

District Nursing F.N.

January 1877

Girling later married the Reverend W W Nicholls, the rector of Charmouth, Dorset, from 1883 to 1900. Florence Nightingale had previously visited Charmouth in 1848 for the opening of Lord Herbert's Convalescent Home.