World figure though he was, I don’t think the Prince would have been nearly as splendid as Mr Bismarck. This is what Florence had to say about her Bismarck:

‘Should you know of a cat fancier who would like a very handsome thoroughbred, powerful Tom cat, a Persian, about a year old, Mr Bismarck by name, black brown and yellow, without a speck of white, who will follow like a dog.

'A great pet. I am looking for a very good home for my Bismarck, whom I cannot keep. 

'He was sent down to me from London a day or two ago because the lady who asked me for him could not take him abroad.”

Well you know what happens when you take a cat in for just a few days…  she kept him, of course, and he became one of her favourites. Apparently he enjoyed rice pudding.  

Because Nightingale was a cat lady supreme. Bismarck was just one of at least 60 cats who shared her long life. It all started when she came back from Crimea in 1856, her health broken. She had contracted Crimean Fever (probably brucellosis) and took to her bed, more or less for the rest of her life. That meant 54 years, as she died in 1910. To bring cheer to her restricted circumstances, friends presented her with a family of Persian cats, and the whole cat thing grew from there.

Now, you may be thinking, what a terrible shame, poor old cat woman, what a sad end for the angelic Lady with the Lamp. 

Let me stop you right here. 

The whole Lady with the Lamp thing was a very successful bit of spin devised by the government and supported the press to bring comfort to the nation. Newspaper engravings showed a slim, girlish figure drifting around in tastefully darkened wards full of not too horrifically injured soldiers, a Mills & Boon heroine in a very sanitised version of the hospital at Scutari. so as not to upset the delicate readers. 

Back in the real world, Nightingale was there to fight the filth. More soldiers were dying of dysentery than from  bullets. She was fighting off rats with a broomstick and fighting her own government to supply adequate equipment. Her priority was to introduce hygiene standards, good sanitation, clean water, and adequate nourishing food. 

Data Queen

She was also busy collecting data to present to the government back home. Thanks to a wonderful father who encouraged education for woman in general and his two daughters in particular, Florence had a mind like a steel trap. Early on, she discovered a passion for statistics and data and a great facility for interpreting both. 

Realising that no-one in government was going to read long detailed reports beyond the second page, she began visualising her data, using a form of pie chart that she called the Rose diagram and modern data wranglers call a circular histogram.(They have no soul, do they?) She didn’t invent it – pie charts were introduced in 1801 by Scottish engineer William Playfair –but she popularised it beyond the world of engineering. It first appeared in 1858, in her snappily titled report

Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army. Founded Chiefly on the Experience of the Late War.Presented by Request to the Secretary of State for War.  

Working from Bed

Now,  stay with me here. Just because she was Working from Bed, (or sofa) it didn’t mean she was  malingering.  Being wealthy, well -connected, ferociously intelligent, beloved by the public and honoured by the queen, she had the ear of cabinet members and legislators. She worked tirelessly despite being too feeble to walk downstairs. In 1860, she founded The Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, a world first. Then she turned her attention to social reform, campaigning for better public health, habitable housing and sanitation at a time when half of London’s children died before they were five and the life expectancy was 40. Most of the campaigning was conducted through books, pamphlets and letters.  

And her cats helped her. 

You know how cats love to help if there is the prospect of paper to sit on? Well Florence’s cats were the world’s keenest interns. She frequently worked with one of them draped round her neck like a comforting scarf. They wandered the house at will, ‘almost like tigers and very wild.’ slept in piles on her bed, and had a habit knocking over the inkpots and making ‘unseemly blurs’ on her work, We know this, because the unseemly blurs of their inky paw marks can be seen on her papers and letters that have recently been made public.

Belvedere and I suspect she relished the recluse role. She had public recognition and respect, was able to work at what she most wanted to do, and could enjoy all the honour due to a public figure and the benefits of society without actually having to take part in it.  

Smart,  self-possessed, greatly admired and slightly feared… I suspect that Florence Nightingale may have been part cat.  

So much more than a  mere lamp holder.  

Final note.  Decades before the Beckhams thought of it, Nightingale was called Florence because that was where she was born; her sister was called Parthenope, which is the Greek name for Naples, which is where she was born. 

Belvedere insists that he is named after the Forte Belvedere in Florence

I suspect he is named after an unregarded corner of south-east London . 

For more Infographic fun, take a look at the Clowder Press title, The Infographic Cat.