Aug 17, 2025 · 54 min · 22 segments
Pre-order our new book: Short History of Ancient Rome Revered as a heroine, and mythologised as ‘the Lady with the Lamp’, Florence Nightingale has gone down in history as the founder of modern…
William is the heir to a considerable fortune inherited from his great uncle, a wealthy industrialist, while his wife is the daughter of a crusading MP whose causes include the abolition of slavery and freedom of religion.In 1821, the young family moves back to England, splitting their time between two beautiful homes.
Hannah Amos is the collections manager at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London.
One of the properties that William Nightingale had inherited, Lea Hurst up in Derbyshire, was to be their main family home, and they would spend most of their summers in this large house with lots of lovely surrounding countryside.
They also purchased a second house, Embley Park, down in Hampshire, which became their winter home.
William invests his time in providing his daughters with a rich, full education, unusual for girls of the era.
Outside the classroom, she develops a passion for the natural world, collecting shells and flowers, and grasping any opportunity to care for a new pet.
When a maid discovers a nest of baby mice in a mattress, Florence attempts to hand-rear them, feeding them drops of milk and warming them by the fire.
But despite the Nightingale sisters' education and interests, as upper middle-class girls, their future paths are narrow.
The main expectation that their family would have had for both of the daughters would have been to get married, have their own children, and run their own household, and basically continue the family lines.
Florence decided at I think quite an early age that this life probably wasn't gonna be for her.
In 1836, at the age of 16, she experiences the first stirrings of a vocation when influenza tears through the bucolic community surrounding the Nightingales' grand Hampshire home.
She cares for the sick, rising before dawn, busying herself with tasks throughout the house.
The following year, a teenage Princess Victoria ascends to the throne, and Florence comes to believe that God has a special plan for her, too.
Influenced by the writings of the American preacher Jacob Abbott, she aspires to a life devoted to practical, selfless acts of charity.
William is the heir to a considerable fortune inherited from his great uncle, a wealthy industrialist, while his wife is the daughter of a crusading MP whose causes include the abolition of slavery and freedom of religion.In 1821, the young family moves back to England, splitting their time between two beautiful homes.
Hannah Amos is the collections manager at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London.
One of the properties that William Nightingale had inherited, Lea Hurst up in Derbyshire, was to be their main family home, and they would spend most of their summers in this large house with lots of lovely surrounding countryside.
They also purchased a second house, Embley Park, down in Hampshire, which became their winter home.
William invests his time in providing his daughters with a rich, full education, unusual for girls of the era.
Outside the classroom, she develops a passion for the natural world, collecting shells and flowers, and grasping any opportunity to care for a new pet.
When a maid discovers a nest of baby mice in a mattress, Florence attempts to hand-rear them, feeding them drops of milk and warming them by the fire.
But despite the Nightingale sisters' education and interests, as upper middle-class girls, their future paths are narrow.
The main expectation that their family would have had for both of the daughters would have been to get married, have their own children, and run their own household, and basically continue the family lines.
Florence decided at I think quite an early age that this life probably wasn't gonna be for her.
In 1836, at the age of 16, she experiences the first stirrings of a vocation when influenza tears through the bucolic community surrounding the Nightingales' grand Hampshire home.
She cares for the sick, rising before dawn, busying herself with tasks throughout the house.
The following year, a teenage Princess Victoria ascends to the throne, and Florence comes to believe that God has a special plan for her, too.
Influenced by the writings of the American preacher Jacob Abbott, she aspires to a life devoted to practical, selfless acts of charity.
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3 of 9
Rethinking Nightingale’s Legacy
Let’s challenge what you think you know.
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Wrong Theory, Right Practices
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