Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Florence, Italy, To the parents of William Edward Shore and Francis Smith-Shore. One year after Florence was born her family moved to Derbyshire, England into a house that her father had inherited. In 1844, Florence's cousin, Henry Nicholson, proposed to her but she declined. .
She wanted to start working at Salisbury Infirmary, nearby. Because of the reputation of nursing back then everybody was horrified. A cultured lady of that day did not enter in hospital work. She is approached with, yet another, marriage proposal in 1847. This time, by Richard Monckton Milnes. At the same time she is having a mental breakdown. Selina and Charles Bracebridge take her to Rome with them for some time to think. After years of waiting, Milnes is given a final answer to his proposal. An answer of no. After a lot of thought she said that she couldn't have work of her own if she chooses to follow her heart into a society marriage. She concluded that marriage would destroy her chance of "serving God's call." In 1849, she accompanies the Bracebridge's on another trip. This time, down the Nile river in Egypt and Greece.
On July 31-Auguse 13 of 1850, she made her first visit to the Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine. At the end of her visit, Reverend Pastor Theodore Fliedner asked her to write a pamphlet on the institution. She did but declines declined credit for the work. .
In 1854, Florence was asked to go to Turkey to nurse the British soldiers. She assembles a party of thirty eight nurses and goes to work at eh Barrack Hospital. This is her chance to show the value of female nurses in military hospitals. With enough supplies and nice facilities the nurses think that every thing will be alright but they walked into sheer horror. Doctors" resistance had been broken down. Florence was, from then on, known as a heroine. To the soldiers and hometown people.