Florence Nightingale and the Health of the Raj

Although the life of Florence Nightingale is a much-trodden territory, her involvement with India and Indians is relatively unknown. This is surprising as she was concerned with Indian affairs from 1857 to 1894. This book presents in detail this aspect of her life and work, and shows how she progressed from being concerned with the narrow sphere of army sanitation to the socio-economic condition of the whole of India. Despite her interest in the country, Florence Nightingale never actually visited India. But she still managed to instigate and inspire a number of sanitary and social reforms there. Starting in 1857 with army sanitation she had, by the end of her involvement with India in 1894, shifted her attention to such social issues as village sanitation and female education. In between, she was involved with the development of hospitals, irrigation, famine relief, the land tenure system in Bengal, urban sanitation and female nursing. In this volume, Jharna Gourlay covers all these aspects of Florence Nightingale’s work, tracing her political involvement and her growing awareness of Indian problems, showing how she gradually moved from an imperialist position to one advocating power-sharing Indians. Her story is also one of how a private individual without official position - and, moreover, a woman in a patriarchal society - could influence government policy and public opinion on matters of immense importance. Based on primary sources from both Britain and India, particularly her own correspondence and articles, this book tells Florence Nightingale’s story though her own words, whilst simultaneously placing it in the wider historical context.