SAINT THOMAS' HOSPITAL: NIGHTINGALE COLLECTION

<p>For Matron's correspondence and papers relating to acquisitions and other matters concerning the Nightingale Collection 1909-1968 see H01/ST/NTS/A/16/001-030. See also the Nightingale Fellowship Journal 1929-1991 (ref: H01/ST/NTS/Y/35/3/001-034). The Nightingale Print and Photograph Collection also contains papers and photographs relating to objects in the Nightingale Collection (ref: H01/ST/NCph/BIII/d/1-55).</p>

Documents and books relating to Florence Nightingale deposited in 1968 by the Matron, Nightingale Training School, St. Thomas' Hospital. Ownership is now vested in the Florence Nightingale Museum Trust.

Acquisitions to the Nightingale Collection continued to be received both during and after the War. In 1960 Miss E.M. McInnes, St. Thomas' Hospital Archivist, organised a major exhibition to commemorate the centenary of the founding of the Nightingale School. (See H01/ST/NTS/Y/13/001-010).

In 1967 the Board of Governors of St Thomas' Hospital decided to transfer the archives of St Thomas' Hospital to the Greater London Record Office. In 1968 the archives of the Nightingale School and most of the documentary and photographic material from the Nightingale Collection were also deposited in the Greater London Record Office.

After the death of Florence Nightingale in August 1910, her executors gathered together her papers and borrowed other letters and papers from many of her correspondents to assist Sir Edward Cook to write her biography. This was published in two volumes in 1913. Shortly afterwards the Matron of St. Thomas' Hospital, Miss, later Dame, Alicia Lloyd Still, started to collect letters, papers, books, photographs, prints and all manner of objects associated with Florence Nightingale and the early years of the Nightingale School with the intention of forming a museum.

The principal benefactors and donors to the collection included Louis Shore Nightingale, Rosalind Vaughan Nash, and Barbara, Lady Stephen, who were the children of Florence Nightingale's cousin, William Shore Nightingale. Joanna Bonham Carter gave the papers of her father, Henry Bonham Carter, to the Nightingale School. Lord Riddell, whose wife had trained as a nurse at St. Thomas' Hospital, purchased many letters written by Florence Nightingale which he gave to the collection. Relatives of Angelique Lucille Pringle, Rachel Williams, Sir John McNeill, Lady Makins, Elizabeth Bosanquet, Helen and Jessie Blower, Mary Cadbury, and many others donated valuable collections of documents and books. A room in the Nightingale Home served as temporary museum (For a photograph of this 'museum' see H01/ST/NCph/CIV/e/28). Other prints and photographs were displayed on the walls of Matron's Office and in rooms in the Nightingale Home.

During the Second World War St. Thomas' Hospital was badly damaged by bombing. The Nightingale Home was destroyed by a flying bomb in 1944. Florence Nightingale's Crimean carriage was seriously damaged in an earlier air raid in 1940, but was restored. (For papers and photographs see H01/ST/NCph/BIII/d/01-40). Fortunately most of the Nightingale Collection was stored in Riddell House, which escaped the bombing.

In the early 1980's an appeal was launched to raise money to establish a museum on the lower ground floor of the new Nightingale School building at St Thomas' Hospital. The Florence Nightingale Museum was opened by HRH Princess Alexandra on 4 February 1989. Here many personal items formerly belonging to Florence Nightingale, clothing, furniture, books, letters, portraits, photographs and Crimean relics, have been placed on public display in a museum devoted to her life and the many aspects of her work including nursing, midwifery, district nursing, hospital architecture, the health of the army, and irrigation and sanitation in India.

One register of nurses and several prints and photographs have been withdrawn from the Greater London Record Office for display in the museum, but the rest of the documentary and photographic collections remain available for study here.