12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910. Nightingale was named after the city of her birth, in Italy. At the age of 17, at home in Hampshire, she felt that God was calling her to become a nurse, and despite family opposition (to her taking a role not in keeping with her social status), she began to study in the art and science of nursing. She travelled widely to further her education and met many influential people, some of whom were to help her later in her career. In 1853, Nightingale took the post of Superintendent of the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street, London.
In 1854, Nightingale and a team of 38 volunteer nurses went to a place around 300 miles from the Crimean war camp and started to tend wounded soldiers. Working in squalid conditions, with poor hygiene, despite the efforts of Nightingale and her team many patients died.
It was during the Crimean campaign that Florence Nightingale became known as the Lady with the Lamp. This image captured the imagination of the public who contributed generously to a fund which was established to enable the training of nurses. By 1859, the fund was at £45000, a huge amount in those days, and Nightingale set up a Training School at St. Thomas' Hospital. She published a book, Notes on Nursing, which sold not just to nurses but to members of the public, and established health rules and hygiene practices, which changed health practice dramatically. Nurses trained at the Nightingale Training School spread from London throughout the world. In the later half of her life Nightingale suffered from ill-health and depression, but she continued to write and to work even though she was sometimes bedridden. She died at the age of 90, having received honours in life, and leaving a legacy to nursing that can scarcely be underestimated.

1805 – 14 May 1881. After hearing of the war in Crimea, Mary Seacole travelled from her native Jamaica to London to volunteer as a nurse. She had learned folk medicine and herbal remedies from her Jamaican mother who ran a boarding house which had many guests who were sick European solders and sailors, some suffering from Yellow Fever. Seacole helped to nurse them back to health. Her father was a Scottish officer serving in the British army, and Seacole regarded herself as a Scots Creole.
As she was not selected to be part of the group of 38 nurses who accompanied Florence Nightingale, Seacole borrowed money and set out on a journey of 4000 miles to the Crimean front, where she distinguished herself by treating the wounded from both sides, even under fire. When the war ended in 1856 she was left stranded and penniless, but friends came to her aid and raised funds for her return. She was honoured in the latter part of her life, but was forgotten for almost 100 years afterwards, perhaps in part because of prejudice against her mixed race.