Name William Nightingale | ||
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Died 1874, Wellow, United Kingdom Spouse Frances Nightingale (m. 1817) People also search for Florence Nightingale, Frances Parthenope Verney, Frances Nightingale | ||
William Edward Nightingale (1794–1874) was a noted English Unitarian and the father of Florence Nightingale, "the lady with the lamp"
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Biography
William Nightingale (known also as W.E.N.) was born William Edward Shore in 1794. His father was William Shore. His mother was Mary née Evans (who died in 1853 at Tapton House, Sheffield). She was the niece of one Peter Nightingale, a lead mining entrepreneur, under the terms of whose will William Shore inherited his estate Lea Hurst in Derbyshire, but also assumed the name and arms of Nightingale in 1815. He was appointed Sheriff of Hampshire in 1828. He had two sisters, Anne and Mary.
By his early twenties, William Nightingale had an income of £8,000, and as a result, he was very wealthy and liked to indulge in activities such as hunting and shooting. As well as Lea Hurst, he also owned Embley Park, an estate in Hampshire.
In 1817, when he was 23 and she 29, he married Frances "Fanny" Smith (1789–1880), from Parndon in Essex, daughter of the Whig M.P. William Smith, a noted abolitionist. They had two daughters, both born while the family was on the Grand Tour of what would later become Italy. The elder, Parthenope Nightingale, was born in Naples and named after the city's Greek title. The younger was Florence Nightingale, best known for her nursing career but also notable in the field of statistics.
Interest in politics
William Nightingale had a keen interest in politics, and in 1829, He was named the High Sheriff of Hampshire. During the summer of 1834, he ran for parliament as a Whig candidate for Andover, advocating for the Reform Bill and condemning the practice of electoral bribery. His principles led to his defeat in the election, a result that deeply surprised him. Consequently, he made a firm decision to steer clear of political involvement henceforth.
In 1838 he took his family on tour in Europe. In Paris he was introduced to Mary Elizabeth Clarke, an English-born salon hostess. "Clarkey" generally rejected female company and spent her time with male intellectuals, but she made an exception in the case of the Nightingale family. She and Florence were to remain close friends for 40 years despite their 27-year age difference.
