Florence Nightingale Letters to Victorian Physicians to Auction

A cache of correspondence by the founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale will go under the hammer at Sworders on November 1 consigned by a descendent of Sir Thomas Longmore, the Surgeon-General and professor of military surgery at the Army Medical School.

Of the 44 letters, 14 are written to Longmore and 30 to Scotsman Sir James Clark, 1st Baronet (1788-1870). Physician to the poet John Keats in Rome and to the future Leopold I of Belgium, he was also Physician-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria between 1837 and 1860. A close Nightingale family friend, he was a major influence on Florence’s choice of profession.

Nightingale wrote to him on July 16, 1860, when he was still working in the royal household: “I should be proud indeed if you would present my little book to our beloved Princess, England's eldest daughter. [I enclose a copy] good angels speed her! I enclose another copy, in case it would be proper to present it to the Queen- as having a little more matter in a better type.” 

The ‘little book' to which she refers is almost certainly Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not which she wrote following her experiences in Crimea. Designed as a practical guide to help women manage health and care for the sick at home, it was also the cornerstone of the curriculum at the Nightingale Schools. Signed in full Florence Nightingale, the letter has an estimate of £1,000-£2,000.

Following the systemic failures of the Crimean War, Nightingale worked closely with Clark on sweeping sanitary reforms for the British military. They used their aristocratic connections to forward their agenda. On July 29, 1863, she wrote to Clark discussing a report submitted to Leopold I. The seven-page letter begins: “I sent today, according to your desire one hard folio copy of our report for the King of the Belgians, two copies for yourself & the Queen. I also enclose a letter for the Queen, which please send on.” It also has a £1,000-£2,000 estimate.

Letters to Sir Thomas Longmore include two, each estimated at £1000-£2000, written in the spring of 1867. The first, marked private, on February 28 begins with a reference to the ill health that she suffered for much of her life. “I have had so serious a chest attack that, for 17 nights, I could scarcely lie down” but quickly turns to discussions around army field hospitals and a debate regarding the rank and role of the surgeon major who oversaw regimental medical care and performed emergency operations.

In a letter written on March 18, 1867, marked ‘Burn’ Nightingale said. “My dear Sir, I have done all I can in the Surgeon-Majors matter, &, as far as I know, without the slightest success. I am told that there is "nothing for it but to have a question asked about it in the House of Commons." I would gladly arrange for this being done, but that I do not expect any good from it.’

The cache of letters comes for sale as part of Sworders’ online sale of Books, Manuscripts and Maps on November 1. A letter written by Nightingale in which she discussed the creation of the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention was sold from the same collection in May for £3,550.