2-913-908 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Boulogne Fishwomen carrying the Luggage of the Nurses for the East, 1854. British nurses attached to Florence Nightingale's staff travel via France to the hospital at Scutari during the Crimean War. '...the news of their arrival having spread, a crowd had assembled to welcome the self-devoted band, and bid them "God speed!" on their mission of charity...Miss Nightingale and the thirty-seven nurses who accompany her sailed, from Marseilles, in the Vectis steamer, for Constantinople. Throughout the whole of their journey through France they were everywhere received with demonstrations of sympathy and respect....[The Semaphore newspaper of Marseilles, wrote]: "She and her companions will find there their field of battle in the hospital wards and ambulances, where their sex so well qualifies them to fill a dangerous though heroic position"'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.