ABSTRACT

Florence Nightingale's pioneering work in giving nursing a professional status, her self-sacrificing role in the battlefield of Crimea, her picture as the Lady with the Lamp by the bedside of a wounded soldier and her contribution to medical statistics are all well known. Florence Nightingale was born at a time when social reform was an outstanding strong force in nineteenth-century Britain, one cause of which lay in industrialisation and economic transformation. Florence's involvement with India covered almost four decades, from 1857 to 1897. These four decades were the most remarkable in India's history. They were marked by the gradual development of a political identity culminating in the formation of the Indian National Congress in 1885, leading to a change in British policy towards India. The two other political organisations Florence was in touch with were the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha and the Bombay Presidency Association.