The compiler of this album, Lily Falls was a daughter of Dr William Stewart Falls, senior physician to the Sanatorium for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest in Bournemouth. Probably the chief interest in the album is the letter from Florence Nightingale who wrote to Dr Falls in January 1894 to thank him ‘for the most kind note admitting Fanny Dowding.’ Our letter dovetails into another by Nightingale to Dr Falls of the 20th November 1883, now held at Columbia University in which she outline’s the poor health and incapacity of Fanny. Fanny had been in poor heath since at least 1880 but her tuberculosis had taken a turn for the worse and by December she was on the Charity Ward of St Thomas’s Hospital. Several doctors urged that she should be sent to Dr Falls care however there was an issue over Rule 6 at the Bournemouth Sanatorium which stipulated the making of her own bed. Clearly this problem was overcome for Nightingale wrote in reply that ‘The £5 or whatever sum is necessary to have her admitted without a governor’s recommendation shall be gladly forwarded as soon soon as I am informed when I may hope for a vacancy.’ Clearly an ‘inducement’ was made possible to overcome any regulatory difficulty, although Nightingale does sound a little tetchy at having to negotiate the impasse! Although the correspondence about Fanny Dowding sounds as if she was at deaths door, she was actually to survive ill health and die as late as 1922 aged 67. 1922. Dr William Falls, the son of a naval surgeon, was born at Clifton and received his medical education at St. George’s Hospital, qualifying in 1847. He moved in 1856 to the then village of Bournemouth and grew his practice as the population dramatically increased as it became a favourite watering place. Apart from his work at the Sanatorium he was also consulting physician to its Royal Victoria Hospital. Louisa Emma Alicia Falls ‘Lily’ (1869-1928) was the eldest of Dr Falls seven children, she had become a proficient violinist and principle of the amateur Bournemouth orchestra, this went no further because of her ‘station in life.’ She also collected a number of autograph letters in the album from actors and musicians including George Henschel, Louis Reis, Nathalie Janotha, Sims Reeves, Willy Hess, Ellen Terry, Henry Irving together with clippings, invitations, and articles on her marriage to Edward Dent of Shortflatt Tower in Northumberland in 1893.