The Florence Nightingale-Mary Stanley controversy: some unpublished letters.
IN HER brief portrait of Mrs. Catherine Gladstone in 1956, Mrs. Georgina Battiscombe wrote that Mrs. Gladstone's efforts 'to be of some use in the [Crimean] war troubles' brought her into 'a most unfortunate collision' with Florence Nightingale when, under the influence of Mrs. Elizabeth Herbert, Mrs. Gladstone 'threw herself heart and soul ... into the good work of providing nurses for the military hospitals in Turkey . . .'. These efforts, declared Mrs. Battiscombe, 'took the form least likely to commend itself to Miss Nightingale...' because, like Mrs. Herbert, Mrs. Gladstone fell for 'the schemes of Mary Stanley' to lead a second party of nurses to the theatre of war. Mrs. Gladstone assisted Mrs. Herbert and Lady Canning in selecting, outfitting, and dispatching Miss Stanley's group to Constantinople and was soon involved in the quarrels and recriminations which followed the descent of the Stanley party on Turkey, and Florence Nightingale's bitter resentment of this intrusion in her preserve.' Mary Stanley, the third child of Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, and sister of Arthur P. Stanley (1815-81), Dean of Westminster, was a close friend of Florence Nightingale and the Secretary of State for War, Sidney Herbert, and his wife, Elizabeth, since the 1840s.2 An ardent Puseyite, who was converted to the Roman Church during her service in Turkey in 1855,3 Mary Stanley shared Florence Nightingale's interest in nursing, but, unlike Florence Nightingale, was an ardent advocate of the Kaiserswerth plan with its emphasis on the instruction of nurses 'in the art of administering religious comfort to patients. . .'.4 She was eight years older than Florence Nightingale, but 'a strange, emotional creature' and an odd blend of religious fervor and jealousy . . .'.5 Intensely devoted to Florence Nightingale, Mary Stanley had assisted her in recruiting the first group of nurses to go to Constantinople. She was stirred by the success of the Nightingale experiment and encouraged by Cardinal Manning to lead a second party of predominately Catholic nurses to minister to the needs of Crimean War casualties.6 Thus, on learning that Mary Stanley was going to Constantinople, a relative of Mary Stanley wrote: 'So Mary has reached the height of her ambition ... Such nonsense ... to say she did not wish to go.'7 Persuaded by his wife, Sidney Herbert authorized (without the approval of Florence Nightingale) the dispatch on 2 December 1855, of Mary Stanley and a mixed lot of forty-six women (fifteen nuns, nine ladies, and twenty-two nurses).8 When Florence Nightingale learned on 14 December of the impending arrival of the Stanley party, she immediately wrote a vehement remonstrance to Sidney Herbert pointing out that the dispatch of the Stanley group contravened their agreement that *Regent's Professor of History, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.