Florence Nightingale

Born into a wealthy family, Nightingale was determined to enter nursing despite the low status of this work at this time. She managed to acquire experience of nursing in Germany and France and ran a nursing home for gentlewomen in Harley Street, London, before embarking for the Crimea with 38 nurses and sisters in 1854. Her major achievement in the Crimea was to organise the barracks hospital at Scutari, introducing proper discipline among the nurses and better sanitation. She became known as 'the lady of the lamp'.

In 1855 a public subscription was launched for her and raised over £50,000 (more than £2.6 million today). Nightingale decided to use this to found a nursing school. Because of ill-health Nightingale was not able to run the school directly herself, but she oversaw the specification of the nursing school in the new St Thomas' Hospital building and gave instructions for every aspect of the training. From the beginning, her aim was that Nightingale nurses should go on to found training schools elsewhere in Britain and throughout the world.