2010, the centenary of Nightingale’s death, is an ideal moment to relaunch the world-famous Florence Nightingale Museum , based in London.

A Nightingale Museum for the 21st Century

by Caroline Worthington, Director, Florence Nightingale Museum

Caroline Worthington, Director, Florence Nightingale Museum

I joined the Florence Nightingale Museum early in 2008. I came because of its great potential, and because its Board of Trustees were committed to change… creating a museum that would be known for its bold and fresh approach, based on the latest scholarship, and which is not afraid to experiment. 

The new museum we are creating for 2010 will be able to reach more people, and deepen their understanding of who Florence Nightingale was - warts and all.

Our vision is for a museum that connects Nightingale and her contemporaries with the problems that face us all today.

The headlines in any given week will be about many of the things Nightingale fought for – hospital hygiene, the rise of cholera, care of soldiers, the developing world. And all of us at one point in our lives will nurse someone, or be nursed.  

We have a team, and a network of experts advisors, who can make our vision happen: creating a lively and outward looking museum, with education at its heart, quite literally.
 
As you know Nightingale was always looking ahead. She hated the idea of being treated as a museum piece or a plaster saint.  But if she knew that her story was being brought up to date and placed alongside the latest developments, and issues, in nursing and healthcare, I hope she would approve.

Our challenge is to communicate these things in memorable, visually striking and thought provoking ways, using what is mainly a collection of personal objects – her medicine chest, letters, her piano, and a children’s favourite, her pet owl.

2010, the centenary of Nightingale’s death, is an ideal moment to relaunch the museum. We hope to create a museum for the 21st century.

Caroline Worthington joined the Florence Nightingale Museum in 2008 from York Museums Trust,  where she had been curator of art at the city's gallery for five years. Prior to that,  she worked at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter as well as a number of private collections. Caroline Worthington writes regularly for the Museums Journal and Museum Practice and was a member of the Using Collections panel which contributed to the Museums Association's Collections for the Future Inquiry.