Florence Nightingale seeks ladies “of the right calibre” from Addenbrooke’s

Detective work at Addenbrooke’s has uncovered a 130-year-old letter to the hospital from Florence Nightingale ¹ . It was written to the matron, Alice Fisher, in July 1881, and is being released as part of the celebrations for International Nurses’ Day on Thursday 12 May.

 

Miss Fisher was born in Greenwich in 1839. She enrolled as a Lady Probationer at the Nightingale Training School in 1872 before working at hospitals in Edinburgh and Newcastle. In 1877, she applied for – and got – the job of matron in Cambridge.

 

“Dear Miss Fisher,” Florence Nightingale wrote, “I was very glad to hear from you again, and deeply interested in all that you are so good as to tell me.”

 

After inviting her former pupil to visit her in London, she went on to say: “Believe that all your matters touch me tenderly. If among your ‘Special Probationers’ you have any who would like and whom you would recommend to the training at St. Thomas’, please send them us: ladies who do wish to make nursing a profession and who do care for it and are fit for it.”

 

She continued: “We have always, of course, many more applications than we can admit, but also of course, not always of the right calibre. I speak specially of ‘ladies’.”

 

Dr Karen Castille, chief nurse at Cambridge University Hospitals, is Miss Fisher’s modern-day equivalent. She said: “This letter is a fascinating insight into nursing in the past. Miss Fisher was one of the nursing pioneers of the nineteenth century, and she achieved great things because of her training with Florence Nightingale.

 

“She introduced structured training and qualifications for nurses for the first time in this area, and the resulting improvements in patient care were revolutionary. From what we know about her work, she emphasised the need to get the right people doing the right jobs, and to train them well – and that’s a philosophy that we continue to this day.

 

“This is a very different institution to the one that Miss Fisher knew – we employ 2,500 nurses and midwives compared to under 100 in her time – but, just as she intended, we want to recruit and retain high calibre staff who demonstrate our values – to be kind, safe and excellent – and who uphold the legacy of the nurses who founded our profession.”

 

During her time at Addenbrooke’s, Miss Fisher was paid £70 a year – around £32,000 in today’s money. She stayed in the job for five years. In a testimonial, the hospital’s board wrote that she had “completely reorganised the nursing department and in doing so, has succeeded in establishing a very efficient training school for nurses … second to none … and without incessant pressure on hospital funds.”

 

 

She moved on to work in senior roles at other British hospitals before accepting a post as matron of Philadelphia General Hospital in the United States in 1884. She died four years later of heart disease, aged just 49, but is still honoured in the Philadelphia area with an annual procession to her grave.

The three-page letter was discovered by Professor Jennifer Hunt when she started researching Miss Fisher’s life to mark the re-opening of the lecture theatre at Addenbrooke’s which bears her name. There is very little information about her available in the UK, but contacts in America led Professor Hunt to the correspondence in its final resting place at the Josephine A. Dolan Collection of Nursing History at Boston College.

 

A copy will be on display to staff in the Alice Fisher Lecture Theatre as part of the International Nurses’ Day celebrations. The event also includes an awards ceremony which will recognise the achievements of Cambridge University Hospitals’ best wards, best nurse-led research projects, best student nurse, and best nursing mentor.

 

 

 

 

 

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