SAINT THOMAS' HOSPITAL: NIGHTINGALE COLLECTION PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

These prints and photographs form part of the Nightingale Collection deposited in the Greater London Record Office by the Nightingale School. They illustrate the life of Florence Nightingale and the work of the school of nursing which she founded at St Thomas' Hospital in 1860. Many of the prints and photographs have been given to the Nightingale School by former 'Nightingales' and other benefactors.

The first part of the collection is associated with the Crimean War. Prints of ward scenes in the various hospitals at Scutari provide a graphic record of the improvements carried out after the arrival of Miss Nightingale and her nurses. It is on one of these ward scenes by W. Simpson that the stamp to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale was based.

Miss Nightingale herself is the subject of many prints and photographs made at various stages of her life. However authentic likenesses of her are few. She disliked being photographed and shrank from publicity. Such was her renown that many portraits of her were published based on highly imaginative likenesses.

The bulk of the collection relates to St Thomas' Hospital and the Nightingale School. This part of the collection should be used in conjunction with the St Thomas' Hospital Photograph and Print Collection which has also been deposited in the Greater London Record Office, (reference H01/STPH). The two collections partly duplicate and partly supplement each other.

The hospital buildings are well recorded at Southwark, at Surrey Gardens 1862-1871 and at Lambeth from 1871 onwards. This collection is also particularly rich in photographs of student nurses studying in the classrooms of Gassiot House and Riddell House, caring for patients on the wards, and relaxing together in their free time.

Special events in the history of the hospital and Nightingale Training School are well represented. The opening of the hospital on the Lambeth site by Queen Victoria in 1871, the funeral of Miss Nightingale 1910, the hut wards quickly erected to house wounded soldiers during the First World War, the opening of Riddell House in 1937, the evacuation of some patients and staff during the Second World War. There is a series relating to the Evacuation Hospitals, that is the country hospitals to which some St Thomas' patients were transferred. There are very sad scenes of the damage caused to the hospital buildings by bombing during the war, with sympathetic visits by the King and Queen, and everyone looking amazingly cheerful and calm, Sports days, garden parties, the Gullan trophy, innumerable royal visits; the centenary of the Nightingale Training School in 1960 and the laying of the foundation stone of the East Wing in 1963 are recorded pictorially for posterity.