'She didn't play fair and she didn't go through the normal channels. 'Hall's background was the rumbustious, maledominated world of Wellington's army whereas in her you get Victorian upper-middle-class morality.īut Hall's letters are quite witty, and ironic - he was no fool.'Īspin continues: 'One of the interesting things these letters reveal is that Florence Nightingale didn't really play by the rules. 'There was a culture clash,' says Richard Aspin, head of the Wellcome Trust's archive and manuscripts. Hall's letters, contained in a dog-eared marbled letterbook in which he kept copies of the correspondence he sent, mostly to his superiors, emerged recently in an auction at Bonhams, where they were sold for £4,000 to the Wellcome Trust.Īnd to what extent might they simply be the bitter spleen-venting of a 19th century man enraged by the intrusion of a strong-willed woman into his world? He also angrily labels her a 'petticoat imperieuse in the Medical imperio!' Goodness, the pair of them must have had some vicious run-ins.

Yet the unpublished letters of one her contemporaries paints an altogether different portrait of a woman as domineering, bossy, bloody-minded and self-promoting as she was previously thought to have been sweetnatured and altruistic.Īccording to Sir John Hall, Head of Medical Services from 1854-56, Florence Nightingale showed, 'an ambitious struggling after power, inimical to the interests of the medical department.' She is remembered as a nursing reformer, whose example encouraged young women into the profession, and whose thoughts on sanitation, military health and hospital planning left a lasting legacy.

Florence nightingale torrent