A HISTORIAN has published a new book exploring the fascinating link between Malvern and one of the country’s most famous and inspirational nurses.
Cora Weaver has delved into the archives and researched the history of Florence Nightingale’s visits to Malvern during the 19th Century.
Titled ‘Florence Nightingale and the Malvern Water Cure’ it specifically recounts her ten visits to Malvern between 1848 and 1868 and how the the town’s water saved her life.
Nightingale is famous to this day for her nursing work during the Crimean War (1854-1856) where she and her staff nursed and saved the lives of many soldiers fighting battle.
Her dedication and love to nursing earned her the title ‘The Lady with the Lamp’.
Cora told the Observer: “Florence amusingly recounts her first visit but the other nine, all made after she returned from the Crimean War, tell a different story of a complete and debilitating, long-term illness.
“Malvern was Florence Nightingale’s hospital and the Water Cure was her medicine. She said herself that it saved her life.”
The book features a map which takes readers on a guided tour of the hotels and houses in the town associated with Florence’s visits.
It is the result of a year’s intensive research from Cora who has read many published works and spent hours looking over bundles of letters at the Wellcome Library in London, the British Library, and the archive at Claydon House in Buckinghamshire where Florence’s sister lived after her marriage to Sir Harry Verney.
It costs £2.99 and is available from the Great Malvern Priory Church bookshop and the Tourist Information Office in Church Street.
It is also available from Malvern Museum on Saturday’s throughout November.
