Florence Nightingale is best remembered for her work as a nurse
during the Crimean War and her contribution towards the reform
of the sanitary conditions in military field hospitals. However,
what is less well known about this amazing woman is her love of
mathematics, especially statistics, and how this love played an
important part in her life's work. Named after the city of her
birth, Nightingale was born at the Villa Colombia in Florence,
Italy, on 12 May 1820. Her parents, William Edward Nightingale
and his wife Frances Smith, were touring Europe for the first
two years of their marriage. Nightingale's elder sister had been
born in Naples the year before. The Nightingales gave their
first born the Greek name for the city, which was Parthenope.
William Nightingale had been born with the surname Shore but he
had changed it to Nightingale after inheriting from a rich
relative, Peter Nightingale of Lea, near Matlock, Derbyshire.
The girls grew up in the country spending much of their time at
Lea Hurst in Derb