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Archive Reference / Library Class No.D2546/ZZ/59
TitleLetter (on mourning stationery) from Florence Nightingale to Dr Dunn expressing concern over the health of her maid Fanny who has been ill since the previous year and asking for advice in caring for her and other patients
Date9 Jul 1880
Extent1 item
LevelItem
RepositoryDerbyshire Record Office
SenderFlorence Nightingale
Sender Location10 South St, Park Lane [London]
RecipientDr Dunn
Recipient LocationNot given
Archive CreatorChristopher Blencowe Noble Dunn of Crich (1836-1892), medical doctor
Florence Nightingale of Lea Hurst, Derbyshire and Embley, Hampshire (1820-1910), nurse and social reformer
Administrative History- Jane Allison, born about 1840, living in Holloway. Her father Thomas Allison died in 1878
- William Yeomans, living at Holloway House, land agent to the Nightingale family and Poor Law Guardian
- Fanny Dowding: Florence Nightingale's maid. Her brother is possibly William Dowding whose death registered in the Kingston upon Thames district in July-September 1880.
Sources: Civil registration indexes, 1871 and 1881 census
Access CategoryOpen
FormatDocument
CopiesA digital copy can also be viewed on the public computers at the record office.
This letter has been digitised and can be viewed on The Florence Nightingale Digitization Project website at http://archives.bu.edu/web/florence-nightingale
Transcript or Index10 South St.
Park Lane W.
July 9/80
My dear Sir
I have been so sorry not to answer your kind note at once. 
Please continue attending Jane Allison on my account:  & I have also written to Mr Yeomans about her.  I do not wish Thomas Allison's daughter to be receiving parish relief at all: but I do not think there was any intention of sending her to the Workhouse. 
Please continue our kind care of her. 

I have had a terrible fright about my Fanny who came home alone & quite delirious at the beginning of the week - owing to their having kept her sitting up for 96 hours with her dying brother (for whom I had sent her) & then sent her up to London ^alone^ without an hour's rest & fainting, "to buy their mourning," after his death!!!  She has had ^medical attendance 4 times in the 24 hours & a trained nurse night & day.^
What with overwork etc have rarely spent such an ^anxious^ week. 
I will write again:
Yours most faithfully
F. Nightingale
C.B.N. Dunn Esq.
AcknowledgementsTranscription completed by catalogue volunteer RJ, 2020
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