Chapter 5 No.5

She had not waited for the actual appointment of the Commission to begin collecting, preparing, and digesting evidence for it. Her first concern was to draft a circular of inquiry which should be sent to all the Stations in India. It lacked nothing, as will be supposed, in requiring fulness of statistical detail.

When she had prepared it, she sent it in proof to Sir John McNeill for his suggestions, asking him also (May 9, 1859) "kindly to give an opinion as to the general direction which the Enquiry should take." In cases where she was personally acquainted with Governors or high military or medical officers in India, she wrote soliciting their good offices. Sir Charles Trevelyan, then Governor of Madras, promised cordial co-operation. Then she and Dr. Farr set to work on such statistical records as were obtainable from the East India House. There is a bundle of correspondence amongst her Papers relating to the difficulties she encountered, and surmounted, in obtaining official sanction for clerical work in this regard. Dr. Farr's appetite for statistics was as insatiable as hers, and she had taken means to lay in ample supplies:-

(Miss Nightingale to Dr. Farr.) Highgate, June 2, [1859]. Your Commission was gazetted on May 31 and Mr. Herbert is in town. As it will be necessary to obtain the Statistics of Sickness, Mortality, and Invaliding of the Indian Army from the Medical Boards there, would not some of the proposed forms for the Army Medical Dep. be better than any other, filled up for each station with the Diseases annually for a period say of 10 years? Or would it be necessary to provide others? We must, of course, have the most minute Statistics-both for Soldiers and Officers in the Queen's, Company's and native troops. And these we should get by this method for 10 years. I suppose the Medical Boards have the Presidency Medical Book Records. Would it be necessary to get the Returns for each Corps separately? Would it not be important to get the ages-age and time of service at Death or Invaliding?

Hampstead, Dec. 6 [1859]. In consequence of your intemperate desire to have the Indian Medical Service Regulations, we have applied at the Great House for copies. And the answer is that they have only one Office copy, and if we want any we must send to India. Knowing their weakness, we had (in our "Queries") previously sent to two hundred Stations in India for copies of all "Regulations," and we hope the result will satisfy your literary appetite.

Dr. Farr, then, was being fed with statistics. Officials in India were being kept busy with forms to be filled up, and with the preparation of other written evidence. In November 1859 the Commission began taking oral evidence in London, but this was a comparatively minor part of its labours, and during 1860 no public sittings were held. They were resumed in 1861. Lord Stanley had then succeeded Mr. Herbert in the chair, but Miss Nightingale's grip upon the Commission was not relaxed. Two of the Commissioners, Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Farr, were in close touch with her. The former was with her almost every day; the latter asked her to send him questions which he should put to witnesses. As in the case of the former Royal Commission, so now Miss Nightingale saw some of the witnesses before they gave their evidence. Among her visitors in this sort was Sir John Lawrence, as already mentioned, and a friendship began which had important consequences. Seeing that everything was thus in good train, Miss Nightingale was able during the years 1859–60–61 to devote her main work to those other matters with which we have been concerned in preceding Parts. In 1862, her main interest was in the Indian Commission, and the amount of work which she gave to it during 1862–1863 was enormous.

Her manner of life during these years was similar to that described in a previous chapter. Work for the Commission required her constant attendance in London or within easy distance of it. In 1862 she lived either in a hotel (Peary's, 31 Dover Street), a hired house (9 Chesterfield Street), or Sir Harry Verney's house in South Street. During August and September she took a house in Oak Hill Park, Hampstead. In 1863 she divided her time between Hampstead, hired houses in Cleveland Row, and Sir Harry Verney's. Her affectionate friend, Mrs. Sutherland, did all the house-hunting for her. Cleveland Row was selected for its nearness to the War Office; and the convenience of the site so far constrained Dr. Sutherland's sanitary conscience that he declared Cleveland Row to be "the airiest place in London."