Mary Seacole was born as Mary Jane Grant over 200 years ago in Kingston, Jamaica. While her mother was Black Caribbean, her father was white and so she was born a free person, unlike most Black Jamaicans of the time. When she was young she learnt Caribbean medicine from her mother (a doctress), mainly practicing on animals such as dogs and birds. Her mother owned a boarding house called Blundell Hall, and from the age of 12 Mary began to help run it and care for many of its injured inhabitants.
When Mary turned 15, she travelled to England for a year and supplemented her traditional Caribbean medicinal training with European techniques. She loved to travel, and visited many countries such as Cuba, as well as living in London for 2 years. Mary married in 1836 to Edwin Seacole, becoming Mary Seacole, but her husband died young in 1844, her mother following him not long after. Despite her grief, in 1850 she helped treat victims of the Kingston cholera outbreak, and when in Panama a year later also treated those in Cruses suffering from the disease. In 1853, Mary returned again to Kingston, this time caring for victims of a yellow fever epidemic. She was asked to supervise nursing at Up-Park in Kingston, the British Army’s headquarters, and she re-organised New Blundell Hall, rebuilt after a fire, to become a hospital.
The Crimean War persisted from 1853 to 1856. Mary travelled to England to help the injured soldiers after hearing that the medical facilities were inadequate, but was turned away by the War Office who claimed there was no space, and even if there was, they wouldn’t take a Black nurse. Unflinching, she paid her own way to Crimea and set up a hospital called the “British Hotel” with the help of Thomas Day. The hotel, as well as functioning as a mess hall, was a vital place for soldiers to recover and recuperate and Mary became well known in Britain for her healing talents – she was arguably the first nurse practitioner, though the title didn’t exist at the time. The soldiers soon began to call her “Mother Seacole”.
After the war ended Mary returned to Britain, almost destitute from expending her resources into the British Hotel. Those who had met her soon came to her aid with a fund-raising gala in 1857 which was attended by over 80,000 people. In the same year she published her autobiography “The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands”, which as well as being extremely successful was the first autobiography ever published by a free Black woman in the British empire. Though she was revered by many, she still sadly experienced racism from those she helped. At a farewell party in Cruces a man thanked Mary for all she had done, but said it was a shame she was not white and more acceptable. She responded to this saying that even if her skin was darker, “I should have been just as happy and just as useful, and as much respected by those whose respect I value”. Unfortunately, after her death in 1881, she was forgotten by history until 1980, almost 100 years later. She is arguably now one of the most respected figures in history, being voted the Greatest Black Briton in 2004.
