Abbey to commemorate the life of Florence Nightingale
Monday, 21st February 2022
A Service to Commemorate the Life of Florence Nightingale will be held at Westminster Abbey on Wednesday 11th May 2022.
About the service
The service is held annually with the Florence Nightingale Foundation, and celebrates nursing, midwifery and all staff working in these professions. During the service, a lamp - symbolic of Florence Nightingale - will be taken from the Florence Nightingale Chapel during the service and escorted by a procession of nurses to the Dean who will place it on the High Altar.
Last year's service also recognised the outstanding contribution of nurses and midwives to the nation throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
Attendance to this service is invite only.
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale is remembered as the founder of modern nursing, celebrated for the pioneering care she gave to wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. In 1860, she established the first secular nursing school in the world, at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
In her honour, International Nurses Day is celebrated each year on 12th May, the anniversary of her birth.
In 2010, one hundred years after her death, the Abbey's Nurses' Memorial Chapel was re-dedicated in her memory. The chapel, designed by Sebastian Comper, was set up in 1950 to remember all those in the nursing professions from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth who died during the Second World War
