Search

Florence Nightingale has been the subject of numerous biographies and topical studies since she became a public figure during the Crimean War of 1854-1856. However, both the biographical and the topical literature have given little emphasis to the fourteen months of Nightingale's superintendency at The Establishment for Gentlewomen During Illness located on Harley Street, London. Thematic analysis of primary documents including Nightingale's Quarterly Reports to the Governors of her Nursing Home and the recently identified found Minutes of the Ladies' Committee of the Establishment of Gentlewomen During Illness were utilized to identify specific themes considered essential to Nightingale's professional and philosophical development. Harley Street proved to be the catalyst of opportunity that later launched her into the public view as a visionary through which she was to develop nursing as a profession and promote nursing as a legitimate route for women's education and employment.

BJN 100 YEARS AGO The importance of the International Congress of Nurses n 1899, the Women's Congress was held in London. From among those nurses present, The International Council of Nurses was formed. Mrs Bedford-Fenwick, who was editor of the BJN.

Primary source material related to St Mary's Hospital, Paddington and the London Homoeopathic Hospital, and St Marylebone and Kensington Infirmaries, from the late 19th to the early 20th century is examined. Descriptions of nurse probationers by matrons and sisters are analysed. Character traits rather than intellectual ability are stressed as important. More recent literature, from the 1970s till the present time, is examined to chart the shift in terms of prescription for nurse socialisation, with increasing stress on the nurse as 'knowledgeable doer'.