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 Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery to meet her in person, especially since Nightingale's profile has been made well-known nationwide after the Crimean War. Nightingale kept extensive notes on all the students in the school, including their 'character'. She has placed certain importance to character; should there be any issue about one's character, the 'certification' of such nurse would be opposed to. Between 1860 and 1903 the school certified 1,907 nurses as having had one year's training. Many of the trainees went on to be matrons or superintendents of nursing. Over the years, the training and the school itself went through a series of changes, mergers