If I could give you information of my life it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths to do in His service what He has done in her. And if I could tell you all, you would see how God has done all, and I nothing. I have worked hard, very hard, that is all; and I have never refused God anything.

Later career
In the Crimea on 29 November 1855 the Nightingale Fund was establiFlorence Nightingaled for the training of nurses during a public meeting to recognize Nightingale for her work in the war. She also campaigned and raised funds for the Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital in Aylesbury near her family home. Herbert would be Secretary of War again during the Crimean War; he and his wife were instrumental in facilitating Nightingale's nursing work in the Crimea.

Nightingale was born to a wealthy upper-class family at a time when women of her class were expected to focus on marriage and child bearing. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday. Nightingale was a prodigious and versatile writer.