A new exhibition celebrating 200 years since Florence Nightingale’s birth will reveal the real woman behind the myth.
Nightingale in 200 Objects, People & Places will look at her role as a revolutionary campaigner and leader as well as a nurse, and will shine a light on the 30 years that followed her heroism during the Crimean War.
Among the 200 items on display will be the lamp she has been so often depicted with, her medicine chest with its jars of remedies, an audio recording of her voice and her copy of Oliver Twist, sent to her by personal friend Charles Dickens.
The exhibition will explore her efforts in the battle for women’s rights and the physical changes she made to the working practices of hospitals – in nurse training, hygiene, infection control and treatment of patients – which still remain today.
Director of the museum David Green said: “She was a powerful combination of fierce intelligence, acute scientific and analytical acumen, practical nous, the art of persuasion, human warmth and empathy, restlessness and irritability, and almost superhuman levels of energy.”
It will run at the Florence Nightingale Museum in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital for a year from March 8. The exhibition is part of #Nightingale2020, a year-long celebration, with events across the city.
A digital version of the exhibition will be available online at florence-nightingale.co.uk
