Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea

Embley overlooked the hills of the Wiltshire border, and the cathedral city of Salisbury, only some thirteen miles distant, afforded Miss Nightingale a wider field of philanthropic interest.

She was always willing to take part in beneficent work in the neighborhood, and the children's hospital and other schemes founded and conducted by her friends Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Herbert, afterwards Lord and Lady Herbert of Lee, formed a special interest for her in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the Crimean War.

It must not, however, be supposed that in the early years of her womanhood Miss Nightingale gave herself up entirely to religious and philanthropic work, though it formed a serious background to her social life.

Mr. Nightingale, as a man of wealth and influence, liked to see his wife and daughters taking part in county society.

She also took a keen interest in the school and the teacher seminary, and formed a warm friendship with Henrietta Frickenhaus, the first schoolmistress at Kaiserswerth, who was still in charge of the seminary and had, at that time, trained 400 candidates.

Pastor Fliedner had given up parish work to travel abroad and found deaconess institutions in various towns at the time when Miss Nightingale first came to Kaiserswerth, but they occasionally met, and during the latter part of her residence he was at home and took, as may be readily imagined, a deep interest in the training of so brilliant and distinguished a pupil.

Mr. Sidney Herbert visited Kaiserswerth during Miss Nightingale's probation, and had, therefore, an opportunity of seeing the efficient training of the lady who was later to be his honored coadjutor in hospital and nursing reforms.

A very impressive scene took place when Florence Nightingale left Kaiserswerth.

Patients were suffering greatly in extremely unsanitary conditions.

So, in late 1854, Florence received a letter from Britain's Secretary of War, Sidney Herbert, asking her to organize a corps of nurses to send to the Crimean Peninsula.

At the same time that Sidney Herbert wrote to Florence, she wrote a letter to his wife.

Remember she, her family, you know, high up elite social circles, including a lot of big time politicians.

Halleck.

I wish, wrote Gladstone to Richard Monckton Mills, afterwards Lord Houghton, in October 1855, that someone of the thousand who in prose justly celebrate Miss Nightingale would say a single word for the man of routine who devised and projected her going, Sydney Herbert.

Acting on such distinguished advice, I propose to attempt a slight account of the career and personality of this singularly attractive man who was at the head of the War Office when Florence Nightingale and her staff of nurses were sent to the aid of the soldiers wounded in the Crimea.

No life of Lord Herbert of Lee has, at the time of writing, been published, although one is, I understand, in course of preparation.

The name of Sydney Herbert is distinguished as that of the War Minister who, in defiance of official tradition, enlisted the devotion and organizing power of women on behalf of our soldiery perishing in the pestilential hospitals of the East.

Sydney Herbert was born at Richmond in Surrey on September 16, 1810, and was the second son of George Augustus, 11th Earl of Pembroke, by his second wife, Countess Catherine, only daughter of Count Warrenzoff, Russian ambassador to the British court.

His maternal uncle, Prince Michael Warrenzoff, was a companion in arms of Wellington and the founder of the prosperous era in the Crimea.

Sydney Herbert's mother, though of Russian birth, was chiefly brought up and educated in this country, and owing to her father's official position, moved as a girl in the atmosphere of the court.

Very serious.

The war secretary at the time, Sidney Herbert, specifically recruited her to lead a nursing mission during the Crimean War.

So she had official political sponsorship before she even packed a bag.

Exactly.

She suffered from continual ill health and died of consumption in her 37th year.

grace darling was the daughter of a lighthouse keeper and with her father braved almost certain death in attempting to save the survivors of the wreck of the forfarshire by well-nigh superhuman efforts they succeeded in rescuing a great number this gallant exploit made them both famous grace darling had always been delicate and died of consumption four years later florence nightingale a mortal nurse and one of the most influential women in history had at the time of her greatest activity a body so weak that it was a wonder how a woman in such delicate health was able to perform so much of what sidney herbert called a man's work during many years of important achievement she was altogether bedridden Working incessantly, writing, organizing, she was a power throughout the British Empire.

Her influence has spread over the world.

To her, we owe the first idea of training nurses.