History of the Fellowship

THE NIGHTINGALE FELLOWSHIP

The Nightingale Fellowship was founded by Miss Lloyd Still in 1928 after she had been Superintendent for 15 years.  The Nightingale badge had been designed and first presented in 1925. Such a society to bind together past and present members of the Nightingale School had long been in her mind. “It is said that we are late in forming our Fellowship. To that criticism we must submit. But it must be remembered that during those terrible years of the Great War there was no question of division of labour or of interest. The war absorbed our entire energies, then came the inevitable aftermath of clearing away the old, of drawing up and developing new schemes”.

The Nightingale Fellowship was established to embrace all qualified Nightingales. Its first commemorative service was held on 12th May 1929 with a dinner and first Annual General Meeting the following day. Here it was decided to inaugurate and publish the Fellowship Journal during the same year. The gatherings of the Fellowship in the hospital twice a year were always a source of much pleasure both to her and to the members, while the Journal brought the news of the School twice a year to the members far and wide and was specially appreciated by the Nightingales away from England.

A Nightingale Fellowship Benevolent Fund to help members of the School was also launched through the generosity of a former Nightingale and has proved of infinite value

It was a source of intense satisfaction to Miss Lloyd Still that she had accomplished the founding of the Fellowship. “I think founding the Nightingale Fellowship and Journal gave her one of the greatest joys of her life” writes an old friend in Lucy Seymer’s memoir (1953).