Florence Nightingale’s 200th Anniversary
Florence Nightingale’s 200th AnniversaryProbably the most famous nurse ever known, Florence Nightingale was born into a wealthy English family on 12th May 1820 and studied nursing in London. In 1854 she was asked to take a team of nurses out to Scutari to nurse the wounded soldiers from the Crimean War after newspapers reported that many soldiers were dying there due to lack of equipment, doctors, nurses and medical supplies. She was met with horrific conditions when she arrived at the hospital and Florence made it her mission to clean and organise the wards. Her intervention led to a massive reduction in death rates and she was given the nickname ‘The Lady with the Lamp’ because she used to go on her rounds of the hospital each night alone, carrying a lamp. Florence spent the rest of her life campaigning for social reform and transforming hospitals and nursing. Today she is one of the most famous and revered women in the world and the new, temporary, critical care hospitals to treat COVID-19 patients in England are named ‘The NHS Nightingale Hospitals’ after her.
We have written worksheets on Florence Nightingale at three different ability levels to make it easy to provide material for a range of reading abilities and ages. They are part of a larger collection of comprehension resources including Mary Seacole, Emily Davison and many Kings and Queens.