Florence Nightingale comes home to Derbyshire in new exhibition at Cromford Mills
A new exhibition about the founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale will take up residence in Derbyshire where she spent her childhood.
Florence Nightingale: A Living Portrait celebrates the work, character, passions and achievements of a woman whose nursing of soldiers in the Crimea War earned her the title The Lady of the Lamp. From modern hospital architecture and ward design to nurse training, hygiene practices, infection control, evidence-based healthcare, compassionate patient treatment and statistical research, Florence’s visionary ideas have shaped contemporary healthcare practices worldwide.
Presented by the Florence Nighingale Museum, the image-led interactive exhibition will be hosted at Cromford Mills from July 27 to November 3, 2024. It’s a fitting location because the financial support of Florence’s great-uncle, Peter NIghtingale, was key to enabling Sir Richard Arkwright to develop Cromford Mills.
Florence spent most of her childhood in Derbyshire, growing up in Lea Hurst. During her twenties, she began bringing medicine, food and bedding to poor villagers.
Visitors to the exhibition will consider different perceptions of Nightingale, over four themed interactive areas – Angel, Hero, Feminist and Rebel - answering questions about their own views of Nightingale and how they might have acted if faced with the challenges she encountered. Finally, they will encounter a ‘living portrait’ of Florence Nightingale, which will be shaped in in real time as the exhibition gathers the views and opinions of its audiences.
Katie Edwards, General Manager of the Florence Nightingale Museum, said, “While Florence Nightingale is justly celebrated, she is also underestimated. Most of what people know may well be true, but they probably don’t know the half of it. I’m sure that visitors will come to the exhibition with their own images and views - and we want to hear them - but we hope that they will leave with a fully-rounded picture of a woman who was much more than the ‘Lady with the Lamp’. The exhibition was inspired by the fact that Florence Nightingale’s public image seems to change with the times, and we are keen to find out how people see her in 2024.”
Florence Nightingale: A Living Portrait will be open from 10am to 5pm every day. Admission: adult £8.50, child (aged 12 to 16) £4, under 12s and Nightingale Nurses (with badge) free.
Following its run at Cromford Mills, the exhibition will tour further afield wth dates to be announced soon.