Sarah Elizabeth Wardroper appointment as matron at St Thomas' Hospital in January 1854. Although nursing was still largely a disreputable occupation she made St Thomas' a model of reformed, professional, nursing and in 1860, with the creation of the training school for nurses by the Nightingale Fund at the same hospital, she was appointed superintendent. Florence Nightingale selected St Thomas' Hospital as the site for her new nurse training school, largely because of Wardroper's qualities (and those of the enlightened resident medical officer, R.G. Whitfield). Nightingale, Wardroper and Whitfield worked together to establish the new school, the first secular training school for nurses
Florence Nightingale Foundation the Foundation. The Lamp is kept in the Florence Nightingale Chapel in Westminster Abbey. During the ceremony, a number of processions take place. Scholars of the Foundation process the Lamp to signify the knowledge of nursing and are escorted by student nurses signifying the transfer of knowledge to future generations. The Chelsea Pensioners process in memory of, and in gratitude to, Florence Nightingale for her care of the troops during the Crimean Campaign. The final procession is of the Nurses’ Roll of Honour which was compiled by the British Commonwealth Nurses War Memorial Fund and is also kept in the