Volume II Part 10 (1/2)

ALLIANCE WITH SIR BARTLE FRERE

(1867-1868)

Truly these poor people will have cause to bless you long after English Viceroys and dynasties are of the past--SIR BARTLE FRERE (_Letter to Miss Nightingale_, May 6, 1869)

When Sidney Herbert died, his work as an army reformer was in part arrested because he had never put in what Miss Nightingale called ”the ” He had failed to reforanization set up as would ensure even the perained and er of a like state of things in connection with Public Health in India, and Miss Nightingale turned her thoughts to avert it

There had been many ianization, and in so The Sanitary Coround of expense to two officers (a President and a Secretary) in each case, and a further retrenchment was now in contemplation Under each Local Government there was to be one sanitary officer, and it was proposed that this officer should be the Inspector-General of Prisons A ”Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India” would remain, ould not combine that duty with an inspectorshi+p of prisons; but such a sche” for sanitary improve to an end; and Miss Nightingale, regarding him as the indispensable man, looked upon the end of his viceroyalty as an event almost comparable to the death of Sidney Herbert The same error must not be made a second ti of the ress in India ale had a clear policy in her mind, and she secured most of her points with a celerity and a co her ns It will ible if the ht to attain was an efficient machine which would turn out sanitary ie of the day and of which the working would be subject to the propelling force of public opinion She, therefore, set herself to secure, if by any means she could, (1) an executive sanitary authority in India, (2) an expert controlling (and, incidentally, an inspiring) authority in London, and (3) the publication of an annual report on the work done, so as to make both parts of the machinery amenable to public inspection

On the first of these points, Miss Nightingale was doomed to some disappointment Neither at the time hich we are here concerned, nor in her later years, nor yet to the present day, has any supreme and executive sanitary machinery been established in India ”It was true,”

said the Secretary of State during a debate in the House of Lords on Indian sanitation in 1913 (June 9), ”that the present systereat independent Sanitary Depart one of the main departale's ideal at this tinized that sanitary progress in India could not be turned out by clockwork; but at the opposite pole stood the sche sanitary administration in the Local Governments to a sub-head of the prison department She had the satisfaction before Sir John Lawrence left India of seeing another scheme adopted, which was at any rate as far removed from the Prison as from her Ideal On the other two points, stated above, she was at the time completely successful

She had in all this a valuable ally; and it was her way to see so like special providence in fortunate circuical mind sometimes admits exceptions; yet there was in fact no exception

Providence, according to her belief, is Law; and it had becoo to her Hence it was that she made at this time a friendshi+p with one whose disinterested devotion to the cause of sanitary reform in India equalled her own, and whose co-operation was to prove of the greatest value The new friend was Sir Bartle Frere

[90] See below, p 405

II

For a year and more the question of the Public Health Service in India had sluanization was concerned Sir John Lawrence's dispatch had been lost at the India Office for some months (p 109)

Then, when it had been found and Miss Nightingale had drafted the reply, Lord de Grey had gone out of office before the reply could be sent (p 110) She had opened communications with his successor, Lord Cranborne (p 114); but his stay at the India Office was brief, for when Disraeli's Franchise Bill was introduced, he resigned He was succeeded by Sir Stafford Northcote, hoale had no acquaintance She had been diligent in writing to Sir John Lawrence, who continued to ask her advice and send her papers; but she had held her hand on this side The reason was that all her friends told her that ”the Tories would be out in a week” Dr Sutherland, greatly daring, went further and talked treason against Sir John Lawrence: ”He is our worst eneale ascribed this ribaldry to a desire of Dr Sutherland to be off cholera-hunting in the Mediterranean, and reproached him in some impromptu rhymes[91] Sir John Lawrence was her hero If he did amiss sometimes (as she had to admit), she put it down, I suppose, to his Council, hoht was his doing

And o out; they looked, on the contrary, very ale deterer She announced her determination in a letter to Captain Galton (May 28, 1867) He was in touch with Indian sanitary business as a member of the War Office Sanitary Committee, to which such business was often referred, and she attached considerable weight to his judg as drunk as they can be”; she was resolved to have thely advised to coine, by Mr Jowett (for was not Sir Stafford a Balliol man, and therefore specially areed that things were not going well, and was glad that she ive her an introduction, if she liked, to Sir Stafford, and he advised her to see Sir Bartle Frere, ”as I fancy you could overnorshi+p of Boiven a seat on the India Council in London A fortnight later (June 14) he and Miss Nightingale ale to Captain Galton_) 35 SOUTH STREET, _June_ 16 [1867] I have seen Sir Bartle Frere He careat talk He impressed me wonderfully--more than any Indian I have ever seen except Sir John Lawrence; and I seemed to learn more in an hour fro than I did from Ellis in six months, or from Strachey in two days, or from Indian Councils (Secretaries of State and Royal Commissions and all) in six years I hope Sir B Frere will be of use to us I have not yet applied to you to put me into communication with Sir S Northcote

Because why? Your Committee won't sit It won't sit on Monday because Monday is Whit Monday And Tuesday is Whit Tuesday And Wednesday is Ash Wednesday And Thursday is Ascension Day And Friday is Good Friday And Saturday is the Drawing Room And Sunday is Sunday And that's the way that British business is done Now you are come back, youAs for Sutherland, I never see him Malta is the world And Gibraltar is the ”next world” And India is that little island in the Pacific like Honolulu

[91] Free as air

I don't care

Go away To Malta-y

I don't care

Let Sir John Hall Be Director-Genera_ll_

I don't care

As for India-y Let her have her way

I don't care

Free as air

I don't care

Miss Nightingale reatly as he had impressed her He now becaan between thehtingale, whost his papers for 1867 and the five following years considerably ale to hi India”[92] The letters from him to her are not less numerous ”I will make 35 South Street the India Office,” he said, ”while this affair is pending” Miss Nightingale took note of his conversations, principally for couidance But if she hadto learn, and some inspiration to derive, from her The hich she had done for the Royal Coe of sanitary, or rather insanitary, details in India; and on the principles of sanitation she was an acknowledged expert Her acquaintance with the official history of the Indian Public Health question was unique, for no other person had so continuously been in intimate touch with it The clearness of her mind and her breadth of view iher successive ”conquests” (as Mr Jowett used playfully to call them), to the personal factor The adht or were invited to audience of her would have been more (or less) than men if they had not felt a certain pleased curiosity inthis famous woman, who rose from an invalid's bed to receive them Each of them speedily discovered that her enthusiastic devotion to hument, and that remarkable powers of brain were accoraciousness ”She is a noble-”

[92] _Life of Sir Bartle Frere_, vol ii pp 38, 39

Encouraged by Sir Bartle Frere's syale set to work in earnest The first thing was to obtain a colourable starting-point