Sam Doty presents a paper lantern used by Florence Nightingale.
The Lady with the Lamp (video)
Transcript
Voiceover:
Now, in "A small piece of history", Sam Doty of the National Army Museum presents a favourite object from the Collection.
Sam Doty:
What I like about this object is that it's very ordinary. In fact, it shouldn't have survived at all.
It's a paper lantern and it was made in Turkey in the 1850s. And it's the kind of thing you would have bought for a few pennies and then used and then thrown away.
But the reason it survived, and the reason we still have it, is because it was used by this lady behind me, probably one of the most famous women in British history, Florence Nightingale. Famously called the 'Lady with the Lamp', this is one of five lamps said to have been used by her.
Florence is famously called the 'Lady with the Lamp' because she would walk through the wards at night watching after the men as they slept.
It was kept by one of her companions who served out with her in the hospitals in the east and kept and treasured by her. And it was her family who gave it to us here at the Museum.
19 April 2011, 7.00am
Fascinating vid! But how was
Fascinating vid! But how was the lamp lit? How did they keep the paper from catching fire?
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