Nightingale’s caring nature revealed again... in 1899 letter asking for fresh eggs

A LETTER written by nursing legend Florence Nightingale 121 years ago asking a farmer to send her fresh eggs for an ill patient has been discovered in a box of old papers.

Nicknamed “the Lady With The Lamp”, she penned the note on March 6, 1899, decades after she returned to the UK a hero following her work in the Crimean War.

A homeowner was sorting through a box of old papers at his Derbyshire home when he stumbled across it and noticed Nightingale’s distinctive signature on the bottom.

In the letter, a 79-year-old Nightingale asks a dairy farmer to send her six freshly laid brown eggs for a male patient who was “very ill indeed”.

The note, written on headed paper and addressed from 10, South Street, Park Lane, says: “To the Aylesbury Dairy Co. Would you be so very good as to send me at once 6 eggs, if possible, laid this morning (or less than 6 if laid this morning) with the dark brown shells, for a gentleman very ill indeed, who fancies them – and to supply me with the same every morning for the gentleman who likes your eggs, yours faithfully, Florence Nightingale. I shall be so much obliged to you.”

The letter’s owner took it to an auctioneer’s for valuation before the coronavirus lockdown and it is worth between £500 and £600.

The seller, who did not wish to be named, said: “I don’t know why I never noticed the signature.

“I’d glanced at the note a few times and always wondered why someone in my family had decided to keep a letter from someone going on about eggs. I’ve had it for years.

“It was in a box of old family heirlooms I’d inherited.”

Nightingale, who was born in 1820 and died aged 90 in 1910, is known as the mother of modern nursing because her revolutionary reforms made hospitals much more organised and cleaner. She is also credited for inventing the pie chart she used as a way of demonstrating patient health.

Charles Hanson, owner of Hansons Auctioneers, which is handling the sale, said: “What a wonderful find, a letter from Britain’s most famous nurse aptly displaying her caring nature once again. As the nation battles Covid-19, it is good to be reminded of

Florence Nightingale, whose caring nature and dedication continues to be displayed by NHS workers today.”

The Nightingale letter is due to be sold in Hansons’ Spring Fine Art and Library Auction, which has been delayed due to the pandemic.