LETTER: Autograph letter signed.
Smythe, Emily Anne, Viscountess Stangford. Autograph letter signed to Duke George Granville William Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, Andrianople (now Edirne, Turkey), September 10, 1877.
8vo.; three leaves of Lady Strangford’s Ambulance Relief Hospital Letterhead, folded to make 10 pages.
Lady Stangford was an important figure in the 19th century with respect to nursing and hospital practices. She first gained experience from working in London hospitals and then moved on to set up hospitals in conflict areas such as Bulgaria. Her extensive experience setting up hospitals brought her to the British Hospital and Ambulance Fund who commissioned her to set up a hospital to aid the Turkish soldiers during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878.
In this letter, Lady Stangford writes to the Duke of Sutherland reporting the status of her hospital under the Duke’s philanthropic organization, the Stafford House Committee. She describes the hospital as being, “in such credible order you would have thought we had been working for months”, and adds, “no one can help envying our airy clean bright wards and happy faces”.
She writes about the great success the hospital has become since opening, recounting that patients “are all so grateful and so much astonished at the care and attention that never ceases by day and by night”, adding that, “The Commandant Dje’mil Pasha comes nearly every day…he is delighted”.
Lady Stangford mentions the need for more funding as well as the deteriorating situation of the Russo-Turkish War due to, what Stangford describes as, “the frightful incapacity of Suleiman Pasha who is losing battalion after battalion”.
Finally, Strangford announces that she is very happy, “in spite of all the abuse I am getting in newspaper after newspaper my heart and soul are in my work”. This letter exemplifies Lady Stangford’s persistence and dedication to her project in an unstable environment.
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