| Administrative History | - Fanny Dowding: Florence Nightingale's maid
- Elizabeth Shardlow, born about 1829, living at Commonside, Holloway with daughters including Sarah E, born about 1859, Lydia born about 1861 and Elizabeth born about 1864. John Shardlow died in 1875
- Thomas Frances, born about 1816, gardener at Lea Hurst
- Vincent Greatorex born about 1849, living in Holloway
- William Yeomans, living at Holloway House, land agent to the Nightingale family and Poor Law Guardian
Sources: Civil registration indexes, 1871 and 1881 census |
| Transcript or Index | Lea Hurst
Nov 9/79
My dear Sir
I present my Fanny to you - her appetite & strength seem to me very variable. What do you wish her to do next?
2. I am trying hard to get these village people here, whose money all goes in dress & drink, to save. I hope my "converts" may be "enthusiastic." Last night Mrs Shardlow (the widow; a most industrious woman whose daughters are making a comfortable weekly income at the Mill) promised me that her eldest,
C.B.N. Dunn Esq.
Sarah Ellen, should become a member of the Women's Club, if you will "pass" her. The mother told me that the father, having died of Asthma (?), she did not think you would admit the daughter into the Club, & that "it would hurt her feelings so," if you were to "examine her & not pass her."
This was, I suppose, a mere excuse. but I only congratulated her on her willingness, & said that I would ask you for her.
Lizzie & Lyddy (who is almost a dwarf) Shardlow were, at school, little friends of mine. And I would give a great deal if they could be brought up with other notions than dress. Pray help me.
3. Francis, the Gardener, is better: he wants more medicine. He will go away on Friday for a week when we are gone. When you said he was "just the man to have Epilepsy" - would you kindly tell me what are the symptoms of a susceptibility to those attacks?
4. About the supposed drain under Vincent Greatorex' floor: Mr Yeomans tells me that "the drain goes quite the other way" & "never went under the floor" & that Greatorex himself "always said that he got the Typhoid Fever at the mill."
As for this latter asssertion it means nothing : I know a gentleman who with a cess pool under his drawing room, & 3 children dying of Typhoid, declared they got it in the Park!
But do you think I ought to try & insist that 2 or 3 paving stones should be taken up to see if there is any foulness under Greatorex' floor?
in haste ever faithfully yrs
F. Nightingale |