WHEN FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE’S band of thirty-eight nurses set sail from Folkestone, England, on 21 October 1854, each woman was carrying a trunk containing aprons, badges, caps, two types of bonnets, cloaks and shawls, Derry wrappers, linsey-woolsey gowns, petticoats, stays, sleeves, shifts, gowns, nightdresses, stockings, boots and rubber galoshes. The women were bound for the Scutari Barracks, or Selimiye Barracks, across the Bosphorus Strait from Constantinople (now Istanbul). The British were joining Turkish and French forces to fight the Russians in the Crimean War. Built as a Turkish base, the Scutari Barracks were handed over to the British Army to use as a hospital. 

Nightingale and her companions would conclude their rough journey over the water and reach the barracks in early November, after donning their cloaks for the icy weather on deck, then Derry wrappers while preparing for bed in their private quarters. Florence Nightingale – statistician, author, public health defender, hospital administrator – had warned the girls before they landed: no proselytising, no fraternising with soldiers, no drinking, no flowers in their hair. As much as Florence was pioneering nursing as a respectable, viable career option for working-and middle-class ladies, she was also pioneering the nurse’s uniform.