Lady Alicia Blackwood

As she recounts in A Narrative of Personal Experiences & Impressions during a Residence on the Bosphorus throughout the Crimean War (1881), Lady Alicia Blackwood and her husband "were deeply moved to go out" after hearing of "the battle of Inkerman, that terribly hard-fought struggle".

Dr. Blackwood obtained a chaplaincy to the forces; Lady Alicia and two young women friends accompanied him, determined to find some way to help.

"Oh, because," she responded, "I have had several such applications before, and when I have suggested work, I found it could not be done, or some excuse was made; it was not exactly the sort of thing that was intended, it required special suitability, &c." "Well," I replied, "I am in earnest; we came out here with no other wish than to help where we could, and to be useful if possible."

In this way Lady Alicia Blackwood was delegated by Florence Nightingale to create and manage an unofficial hospital for the wives, widows and children of soldiers in Scutari.

In a letter of March 18, 1855, Nightingale disparagingly refers to the women and children as Allobroges, the shrieking camp followers of the ancient Gauls.