Mary Seacole

Seacole was born in 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica, to a Scottish soldier and a practitioner of traditional Jamaican medicine. In 1851 she opened a hotel/boarding house in Panama where she helped tackle the cholera outbreak in Panama. She learnt many of her medicinal techniques from her mother and largely practiced traditional medicine. She also assisted with the yellow fever epidemic in Jamaica in 1853.

However, during the crimean war(1853-56) she had made applications to the War Office, the army medical department and the secretary of war asking to be allowed to go to Crimea and tend to the sick and wounded. She had made it clear the extent of her experience in medicine as well as pointing out that she knew a large number of the soldiers due to them being stationed in Jamaica while she was working there. It was also clear the the nursing system had collapsed. Despite all of this Seacole was not approved by any of the offices she applied to, she was even turned away by Florence Nightingale's assistants. She did consider that this rejection was due to her race but it is unclear if that is the case, it has since been revealed that her applications may have arrived too late for her to be considered.

Despite being turned away by all official bodies she still travelled to Crimea. A family member was travelling to Balaclava and they decided to begin a firm called "Seacole and Day" (Day being the family member's last name), it was a general store which was situated near the British camp in Crimea. It stocked many of Seacole's remedies, she would mainly sell to the soldiers situated in Crimea. She would be known to the soldiers as "Mother Seacole". Although she reduced the workload for military doctors they did not take to her and often referred to her as a "quack", some were less bigoted such as the assistant surgeon of the 90th light infantry admired her ability to tend to the soldiers even in extreme conditions such as cold. Her Hotel was actually situated nearer to the battlefield than Nightingale's hospital which meant that she could tend to injured soldiers on the battlefield.

She would become famous after W.H.Russell, who is considered the first modern war correspondent, referred to her as "a warm and successful physician, who doctors and cures all manner of men with extraordinary success. She is always in attendance near the battle field to aid the wounded, and has earned many a poor fellow’s blessings". At some points she was even considered to have been equally famous to Florence Nightingale. Despite her fame the end of the Crimean war led to her firm going bankrupt, she would return to England destitute. Two Crimean war commanders organised a benefit festival at the Royal Surrey Gardens in Kensington to raise money for her.

She published her memoirs entitled "The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole" in 1857. The preface was by W.H.Russel where he states that he does not think the England will ever forget Seacole. Sadly, he could not be more wrong.

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References:

• "Mary Seacole" entry, Britannica, accessed 23/1/21, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Seacole

• "Mary Seacole" from Black History month official website, accessed 23/1/21, https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/article/section/bhm-heroes/970/

• Image via "Read Mary's Story", the Mary Seacole Trust website, accessed 23/1/21, https://www.maryseacoletrust.org.uk/learn-about-mary/