Florence Nightingale died in London on 13 August 1910, aged 90. More than half a century had passed since her work during the Crimean War created the public image that remained attached to her name.

Nightingale returned to Britain from the Crimea in 1856. Her experience of military hospitals became the basis for a much longer campaign over health, sanitation and the organisation of nursing.

Statistics were central to that work. Nightingale collected and analysed evidence about deaths among British soldiers and used diagrams to show how many had died from preventable disease rather than battlefield wounds. She wanted politicians, officials and army officers to understand the information so they could change military practice. In 1858 she became the first woman elected to the Statistical Society.

Her attention extended beyond the army. Nightingale wrote about hospital planning and organisation and argued for systematic nurse training. The Nightingale Training School opened at St Thomas’ Hospital in London in 1860 with an initial group of 15 probationers. Nurses trained there later took its methods to other hospitals and training schools.

Nightingale also examined health conditions affecting the British army in India. She argued that drainage, water, overcrowding and ventilation affected mortality and continued pressing for sanitary reform.

Poor health often restricted her movements, but she could do much of her work through reports and correspondence. The Florence Nightingale Museum records that she wrote around 13,000 letters as part of her campaigns.

Recognition followed late in her life. She became the first woman to receive the Order of Merit in 1907.

Nightingale was buried at East Wellow in Hampshire. The wartime nurse with the lamp remained the familiar image, having spent most of her working life trying to change the systems behind nursing, hospitals and public health.