Opera singer Jenny Lind was world famous in the 19th Century but the legacy of the ‘Swedish Nightingale’ is particularly remembered in one UK city.
Lind, who was depicted in The Greatest Showman, is still celebrated in Norwich, where she performed during four visits between 1847 and 1862.
“Jenny-mania” swept Europe as Lind toured, and funds raised from her 1849 concerts in Norwich were used to create the Jenny Lind Infirmary for Sick Children, which opened in 1854.
Although now in a different location, the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital children’s department still bears her name and proudly “celebrates her legacy today”, according to consultant paediatric surgeon Richard England.
Lind’s 1849 concerts in the city raised £1,253 – equivalent to about £140,000 in 2026 – for the infirmary.
It was modelled on Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, which had opened two years earlier, making Norwich the second city in the country to have a children’s hospital.
England said Lind “rose to stardom from quite a poor background” in Sweden and “endeared” herself to the people of Norwich for her charitable work.
Speaking on an episode of the Secret Norfolk series on BBC Sounds, he said: “Her arrival in Norwich was delayed because of her illness… she felt so sorry for people in the city that they all were wanting to come and hear her, that she added a third concert with prices reduced so the poor of the city could come along as well.”
After raising money for charity she gifted the funds to the city and so the children’s infirmary was opened in Pottergate, in the centre of the city.
It moved to Unthank Road in 1900 before becoming part of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital on St Stephen’s Road in 1975.
The Jenny Lind Children’s Hospital is now part of the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on Colney Lane, where England works.
“The memory of Jenny Lind’s original donation was always remembered,” he said.