William Nightingale

Who was William Nightingale?

William Edward Nightingale was a noted English Unitarian and the father of Florence Nightingale.

William Nightingale was born William Edward Shore. His mother Mary née Evans was the niece of one Peter Nightingale, a lead mining entrepreneur, under the terms of whose will William Shore inherited his estate Lea Hurst in Derbyshire, but also assumed the name and arms of Nightingale in 1815. He was appointed Sheriff of Hampshire in 1828.

In 1817, when he was 23 and she 29, he married Frances "Fanny" Smith, from Parndon in Essex, daughter of the abolitionist, Whig member of Parliament, William Smith. They had two daughters. The elder, Parthenope Nightingale, was born in Naples and named after the city's Greek title. The other daughter was Florence Nightingale, known as "the lady with the lamp".