Florence & Mary Part 1

40" x 20".

Mercerized cotton dyed with madder, cochineal, sappanwood, cutch, St. John's Wort on painted canvas.

This is the first half of a diptych containing the entire poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson in Morse Code.

These two war belts are for Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. They explore the Crimean War and the roles these two women played in caring for the injured soldiers. They were both nurses. Florence Nightingale introduced the concepts of sanitation and hygiene to the huge and sprawling military hospital at Scutari, near Constantinople. Mary Seacole opened a 'hotel' at the front where she provided food and medical care to the British officers.

Florence Nightingale was not only a nurse, but also a statistician and mathematician. She was actually friends with Ada Lovelace when they were both children! There is a wonderful lecture on YouTube discussing Florence's use of stastistics and charts:

The Mathematical Life of Florence Nightingale

Mary Seacole was an intrepid traveller, entrepreneur and healer. There is an entertaining and informative podcast about Mary Seacole on BBC Sounds:

You're Dead to Me: Mary Seacole

There is an intriguing podcast exploring the Charge of the Light Brigade created by Tim Harford and available on Pushkin.

"Why were soldiers on horseback told to ride straight into a valley full of enemy cannon? The disastrous “Charge of the Light Brigade” is usually blamed on blundering generals. But the confusing orders issued on that awful day in 1854 reveal a common human trait – we often wrongly assume that everyone knows what we know and can easily comprehend our meaning." Tim Harford.

The Curse of Knowledge Meets the Valley of Death