Early life Embley Park in Hampshire, now a school, was one of the family homes of William Nightingale. Florence Nightingale was born on 12 May into a wealthy, upper class and well-connected British family at the Villa Colombaia, [7] in Florence , Tuscany , Italy, and was named after the city of her birth.
Florence's older sister Frances Parthenope had similarly been named after her place of birth, Parthenope , a Greek settlement now part of the city of Naples. The family moved back to England in , with Nightingale being brought up in the family's homes at Embley, Hampshire and Lea Hurst, Derbyshire. Fanny's father Florence's maternal grandfather was the abolitionist and Unitarian William Smith. She recorded that "Clarkey" was a stimulating hostess who did not care for her appearance, and while her ideas did not always agree with those of her guests, "she was incapable of boring anyone.
She said that if given the choice between being a woman or a galley slave, then she would choose the freedom of the galleys. She generally rejected female company and spent her time with male intellectuals.
Clarkey made an exception, however, in the case of the Nightingale family and Florence in particular. She and Florence were to remain close friends for 40 years despite their year age difference. Clarke demonstrated that women could be equals to men, an idea that Florence had not obtained from her mother. In her youth she was respectful of her family's opposition to her working as a nurse, only announcing her decision to enter the field in Despite the intense anger and distress of her mother and sister, she rebelled against the expected role for a woman of her status to become a wife and mother.
Nightingale worked hard to educate herself in the art and science of nursing, in the face of opposition from her family and the restrictive social code for affluent young English women. While her demeanour was often severe, she was said to be very charming and to possess a radiant smile. Her most persistent suitor was the politician and poet Richard Monckton Milnes , but after a nine-year courtship she rejected him, convinced that marriage would interfere with her ability to follow her calling to nursing.
