The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 2 of 2Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir
History
The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 2 of 2
Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir
Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910
Nightingale's Papers.
[75] Rathbone's _Organization of Nursing in a Large Town_, p. 30.
[76] _William Rathbone: a Memoir_, p. 166.
[77] The public letter (Feb. 5, 1864) is printed in Mr. Rathbone's
_Workhouse Nursing: The Story of a Successful Experiment_
(Macmillan, 1867).
The Lady Superintendent--the pioneer of workhouse nursing--was Miss
Agnes Jones, an Irish girl, daughter of Colonel Jones, of Fahan,
Londonderry, and niece of Sir John Lawrence. She was attractive and
rich, young and witty, but intensely religious and devoted to her
work.[78] "Ideal in her beauty," Miss Nightingale said of her;[79] "like
a Louis XIV. shepherdess." She was one of the many girls who had been
thrilled by Miss Nightingale's volunteering for the Crimea. "Perhaps it
is well," she wrote, when entering St. Thomas's Hospital, "that I shall
bear the name of a 'Nightingale Probationer,' for that honoured name is
associated with my first thought of hospital life. In the winter of
1854, when I had those first longings for work and had for months so
little to satisfy them, how I wished I were competent to join the
Nightingale band when they started for the Crimea! I listened to the
animadversions of many, but I almost worshipped her who braved them
all." In 1860 Miss Jones followed in her heroine's steps to
Kaiserswerth. In 1862 she introduced herself to Miss Nightingale, who
advised her to complete her apprenticeship by a year's training at St.
Thomas's. "Hitherto," the Matron reported to Miss Nightingale (Feb. 25,
1863), "I have had no lady probationer equal on all points to Miss
Jones." After completing her year's training at St. Thomas's she took
service as a nurse in the Great Northern Hospital, and she was there
when the invitation came to Liverpool. Miss Jones was at first
diffident, but after an interview with Miss Nightingale "the conviction
was borne in upon her," as she wrote, that it was God's call and
therefore must be obeyed in trust and with good hope.
[78] See "Una and the Lion," in _Good Words_, June 1868 (Bibliography A,
No. 51).
[79] Letter to Madame Mohl, June 13, 1868.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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