Becoming a nurse

Florence felt increasingly trapped by her life of luxury and social duties - or the "tyranny" of the drawing room, as she wrote. Her family were upset and disappointed by her obsession with nursing, and her refusal to marry and refused to let Florence train at a hospital in Salisbury, even for a few months. Hospitals were dirty and dangerous, and nurses had a reputation for drunkenness.

Florence's long battle with her family took a toll on her health. She became depressed and suffered nervous collapses. She studied nursing in secret, and longed to do more with her life.

Florence was finally allowed nursing training at Kaiserswerth, a religious community near Dusseldorf in Germany, where a Protestant pastor, Theodore Fliedner, and his wife ran a hospital, orphanage and college. Florence learned about medicines, how to dress wounds, observed amputations and cared for the sick and dying. She had never felt happier. "Now I know what it is to love life," she wrote.

Back in England, Florence's mother finally allowed her daughter to nurse. She secured a position in a private care home for "gentlewomen" in London's Upper Harley Street. Her father gave her a generous allowance of £500 a year.

When an epidemic of cholera broke out in London 1854, Florence rushed to nurse victims in the nearby Middlesex Hospital. Cholera, It killed thousands during the 19th century.

That summer Britain and France joined its ally Turkey and declared war against Russia.