On August 13th, the ELCA commemorates Florence Nightingale. Though Nightingale was a practicing Anglican, and not Lutheran, her nursing training was from a Lutheran institution.
Born in 1820 in Florence, Italy, Nightingale belonged to a very wealthy British Family. They subsequently returned to England in 1821. Nightingale’s father, William, personally saw to the education of his daughters. According to a BBC documentary, “Florence and her older sister Parthenope benefited from their father’s advanced ideas about women’s education. They studied history, mathematics, Italian, classical literature, and philosophy, and from an early age Florence, who was the more academic of the two girls, displayed an extraordinary ability for collecting and analysing data which she would use to great effect in later life.” Additionally, family friend and writer Mary Clarke taught Nightingale that women could be equal to men.
Nightingale’s parents expected her to marry and take on the role of affluent English wife. But, in 1837 Nightingale felt a call from God to devote her life to service. In 1844 she told her parents of her plan to become a nurse. They vehemently opposed her decision. While traveling with friends through Europe and Egypt, Nightingale visited tourist sites and a variety of hospitals, seeking to broaden her knowledge of nursing.
In 1850, Nightingale visited the Kaiserswerth Deaconess’ Institute and spent four months there studying nursing. The Institute included a daycare facility, a hospital, a halfway house for women leaving prison, and a school for teachers. At the hospital, Deaconesses and Deaconesses in training provided nursing care. Nightingale was impressed by the organization of the hospital, and the professionalism of the nursing, as she wrote in her first publication, “The Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, etc.”
Following her training, in 1854, Nightingale famously led a group of nurses to treat wounded British soldiers in the Crimean War. She instituted changes in patient care and sanitation and lobbied for increasing supplies of medicines. Thanks to a report by William Russell of The Times and a subsequent poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nightingale gained the nickname “The Lady with the Lamp.” However, the original nickname given by soldiers was apparently, “The Lady with the Hammer,” after she used one to break into a medicine cabinet.
In 1860, Nightingale opened a nursing school at St. Thomas Hospital in London. Her organization methods, compassion, and, above all, devotion to hygiene revolutionized nursing and healthcare in the Britain and beyond. She inspired the creation of nursing schools all over the world. Nightingale’s mathematical mind and scientific approach to public health were critical to her success, as was her societal status. But, the training that started it all came from the Lutheran deaconesses in Kaiserswerth.
Sources:
- Nightingale, F. (1851). The institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine: For the practical training of Deaconesses, under the direction of the rev. pastor Fliedner, embracing the support and care of a hospital, infant and Industrial Schools, and a female penitentiary. Printed for the benefit of the Invalid Gentlewoman’s Establishment.
- (1857). Kaiserswerth deaconesses: Including a history of the institution, the ordination service and questions for self-examination. Joseph Robinson.
- Wikimedia Foundation. (2025b, August 3). Florence Nightingale. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Nightingale