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 Florence Nightingale Memorial Committee proposed that the memorial foundation for Florence Nightingale should focus on the post-graduate education of nurses. In 1934 The Florence Nightingale Foundation developed as an independent Foundation based upon the same principles as the Memorial Committee and the Florence Nightingale International Foundation. The Florence Nightingale Foundation has since been a living memorial to her life by providing scholarships to post-graduate nurses, midwives and other health professionals in the United Kingdom. The Foundation is a voice for nursing across the UK. It works to improve patient care in the UK by extending scholars skills and knowledge and