Mary Seacole

Mary Seacole (1805-1881) was a British-Jamaican nurse and healer. Born in Kingston to a Scottish father and a free Jamaican mother, Seacole was raised in a family of healers and doctresses skilled in the use of Caribbean and African herbal edicines. Seacole learned about hygiene, ventilation, and nutrition while working as a nurse at Blundell Hall, a home for injured and convalescent military and naval personnel. Legally classified as mulatto, Seacole identified herself as a Creole woman and remained proud of her Scottish and African ancestry throughout her life. After decades of experience in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas, Seacole used her own resources to travel to Crimea, where she opened the British Hotel and took care of soldiers and officers injured during the brutal Crimean War. Although her service to England has been recognized by generations of historians and public figures alike--due in no small part to the success of her popular memoir Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857)--Seacole has faced hostility from figures associated with Florence Nightingale, who disparage her unorthodox style of nursing. After the Crimean War ended in 1856, Seacole returned to England a bankrupt woman, having put the entirety of her earnings back into the upkeep of the British Hotel, which went under following the Treaty of Paris. Over the next several years, she became the center of a national fundraising campaign, which culminated in a public gala in 1857 attended by a crowd of 80,000 supporters. Largely forgotten by the end of her life, Seacole's reputation and contribution to British society was recognized by historians and commemorative organizations in the late-twentieth century, culminating in her being awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1991.