The Nottinghamshire Nightingales

About the show

‘Yet when prompted she recalled Miss Nightingale and Netley’ This refers to the First Nightingale nurse, now confined to an asylum. So who was she? And why as the First Nightingale nurse is she not better remembered? She was one of 25 Nightingale probationers in the 1860s, to come from Nottinghamshire, ten per cent of those who joined in the first ten years.

The fact that there were so many is down to one remarkable woman, Anne Enfield, a Bromley House Library member, who promoted not only the training of nurses but was passionate about giving working class women the chance to extend their horizons. Many of the other referees also had associations with the Library. These nurses were not Lady Probationers but women who had been working since the age of 8 or 10.

David S Stewart will tell the story of The Nottinghamshire Nightingales in this illuminating talk about this group of pioneering women in the early history, training and employment of nurses.