Mary Seacole
“I am not ashamed to confess that I love to be of service to those who need a woman's help. And wherever the need arises—on whatever distant shore—I ask no greater or higher privilege than to minister to it.”
Mary Jane Seacole (1805-1881) was
born Mary Jane Grant in Jamaica, the daughter of a white Scottish lieutenant
and a free Jamaican woman. Her mother, nicknamed "The Doctress", was
a hotelier and healer who used traditional Caribbean and African herbal
remedies who had learned importance and useful hygiene and medical practices
when caring for slaves on sugar plantations. (Incidentally, such ‘doctresses’
preached the use of good hygiene a century before Florence Nightingale).
In her autobiography, Seacole describes
learning her medical knowledge from observing her mother – practising first on
dolls and pets and then aiding her mother in the treatment of human patients. Her
close family ties with the army also enabled her to observe the military
doctors, giving her a unique blend of West African and British medical
techniques – which she used with great success.
Seacole was proud of both her
Jamaican and Scottish ancestry, and referred to herself as a ‘Creole’ -
commonly used in a racially neutral sense or to refer to the children of white
settlers with indigenous women. Legally, however, she was classified as a
‘mulatto’ a multiracial person which gave her limited political rights. In her
autobiography, Seacole describes her efforts to disprove the stereotype of the
‘lazy Creole’, and her pride at her black identity: ‘I am proud of the
relationship – to those poor mortals whom you once held enslaved, and whose
bodies America still owns."
In the late 18th century,
the West Indies were an outpost of the British Empire and a source of one-third
of Britian’s foreign trade. Thus, huge numbers of British troops succumbed to
tropical diseases for which they were unprepared, providing West Indian nurses
such as Seacole with large numbers of patients on a regular basis. Mary Seacole spent some years in the household
of an elderly woman, her "kind patroness", with whom she
received a good education. As the educated daughter of a Scottish officer and a
free black woman with a respectable business, Seacole would have held a high
position in Jamaican society
In about 1821, Seacole visited
London, staying for a year visiting relatives. Although London had a number of
black people, she records that her companions were ‘taunted’ by children –
while she herself was white-passing owing to her Scottish father. Her
later travels would be as an "unprotected" woman, without a chaperone
were highly unusual.
After returning to Jamaica, Seacole
nursed her patroness and returned to her family when she died a few years
later. Seacole then worked alongside her mother, occasionally being called to
assist at the British Army hospital. She
also travelled the Caribbean.
She married Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole in November
1836. She gives her marriage only nine lines of her autobiography – the
gal clearly had her priorities in order and knew even then that her career was
a more important legacy than her marriage! Edwin was a merchant and seems to
have had a poor constitution and an unsuccessful business.
During 1843 and 1844, Seacole
suffered a series of personal disasters. Her family hospital and boarding house
burnt down in 1843. The following year, she lost both her husband and her
mother. After a period of being paralysed by grief, she "turned a bold
front to fortune" and assumed the management of her mother's hotel. She
put her rapid recovery down to her hot Creole blood, blunting the "sharp
edge of [her] grief" sooner than Europeans who she thought "nurse
their woe secretly in their hearts". She emersed herself in work,
declining many offers of marriage. She later
became widely known and respected, particularly among the European military
visitors to Jamaica. She treated patients in the 1850 cholera epidemic,
correctly attributing its outbreak to contagion from a steamer ship from
America. This first-hand experience would benefit her during the next five
years.
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In 1851, Seacole travelled to Panama
to visit her brother. Shortly after her arrival, the town was struck by
cholera. She saved the first victim, establishing her reputation as a competent
doctor. Her successes were limited, but she remained the most competent doctor
in the area. An autoposy she performed on a young orphan gave her a "decidedly
useful" insight into the disease. However, she herself contracted cholera
and took several weeks to recuperate while she was cared for by locals.
Despite the problems of disease and climate, Panama remained the favoured route between the coasts of the United States, and Seacole saw this as an opportunity to establish a restaurant and barber to catch the passing trade. Seeing a business opportunity, Seacole opened the British Hotel, which was a restaurant rather than an hotel. She described it as a "tumble down hut," with two rooms, the smaller one to be her bedroom, the larger one to serve up to 50 diners. She soon added the services of a barber.[61]On moving cities from the wet season, she remembers an encounter with a white American that gave a leaving speech for her: asking the listeners to join with him in rejoicing that "she's so many shades removed from being entirely black" stating "if we could bleach her by any means we would [...] and thus make her acceptable in any company[,] as she deserves to be". Seacole was not amused and replied that she did not:
"appreciate your friend's kind wishes with respect to my complexion. If it had been as dark as any nigger's, I should have been just as happy and just as useful, and as much respected by those whose respect I value."
In Gorgona, Seacole briefly ran a
females-only hotel. In late 1852, she endeavoured to return to Jamaica but
racial discrimination from American ships delayed her journey as she had to
wait for a British ship. In 1853, Seacole was asked by the Jamaican
authorities to treat victims of yellow fever, however the severity of the
outbreak left her unable to do much.
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Seacole returned to Panama in early
1854 to finalise her business affairs. Upon hearing of the escalating crisis
leading to the Crimean war, she determined to travel to England to volunteer as
a nurse, expressing a desire
to experience the "pomp, pride and circumstance of glorious war". She
also knew some of the soldiers deployed in the war and wished to care for them
again.
Thousands of troops across Europe
succumbed to cholera and disease on or awaiting deployment to the battlefields.
Seacole had travelled Panama to England, initially to deal with her investments
in gold-mining businesses. She applied to join a contingent of nurses being
sent to the front, but her application was denied. She dealt with this somewhat
more graciously than I would have, revealing an awareness that her ethnicity
and nationality stood against her: "Now, I am not for a single instant
going to blame the authorities who would not listen to the offer of a motherly
yellow woman to go to the Crimea and nurse her "sons" there,
suffering from cholera, diarrhoea, and a host of lesser ills. In my country,
where people know our use, it would have been different; but here it was
natural enough – although I had references, and other voices spoke for me –
that they should laugh, good-naturedly enough, at my offer."
Seacole also applied to the Crimean
Fund, a fund raised by public subscription to support the wounded in Crimea,
for sponsorship to travel there, but she again met with refusal. Seacole
questioned whether racism was a factor in her being turned down: ‘Did these
ladies shrink from accepting my aid because my blood flowed beneath a somewhat
duskier skin than theirs?". She also ‘had an interview this time with one of Miss Nightingale's
companions. She gave me the same reply, and I read in her face the fact, that
had there been a vacancy, I should not have been chosen to fill it." She
was also refused by the Secretary-at-War and his wife. Nightingale herself
reportedly wrote, "I had the greatest difficulty in repelling Mrs
Seacole's advances, and in preventing association between her and my nurses
(absolutely out of the question!)...Anyone who employs Mrs Seacole will
introduce much kindness - also much drunkenness and improper conduct".
Seacole finally resolved to travel to
Crimea using her own resources and to open the British Hotel. Shortly
afterwards, a friend from the Caribbean arrived unexpectedly in London, and the
two formed a partnership. Seacole travelled to Constantinople in 1855, where
she met a doctor who wrote her a letter of introduction to Nightingale. Seacole
visited Nightingale at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari, where she asked for a
bed for the night. Then she set out on the four-day voyage into Crimea at Balaclava.[78]
Lacking proper building materials,
Seacole gathered abandoned metal and wood in her spare moments, with a view to
using the debris to build her hotel using hired local labour. The “hotel”
opened in March 1855. Seacole was advised to focus on food and drink, rather
than having overnight board. The hotel was completed in July at a total cost of
£800.Despite consistent thefts, Mary’s business flourished. She hired two black
chefs but often prepared the food herself when not completing medical duties
such as distributing medicines.
An associate of both Seacole and
Nightingale believed that the two women spoke highly of each other and their
respective works. However, Nightingale apparently did not want her nurses associating with
Seacole. Seacole often went out to serve troops as a civilian merchant and
attending to casualties. She became widely known amongst the British troops as
“Mother Seacole”.
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Apart from serving officers at the
British Hotel, Seacole also provided catering for spectators at the battles. On
one occasion, attending wounded troops under fire, she dislocated her right
thumb, an injury which never healed entirely.
In 1855, William Howard Russell, special correspondent of The
Times, wrote that she was a "warm and successful physician, who
doctors and cures all manner of men with extraordinary success… she was
"both a Miss Nightingale and a [chef]". She purposefully wore bright
and conspicuous clothing. Her peers,
though wary initially, soon appreciated Seacole’s value for medical assistance
and morale: ‘a coloured women who out of the goodness of her heart and at her
own expense, supplied hot tea to the poor sufferers…. She did not spare herself
if she could do any good to the suffering soldiers. In rain and snow, in storm
and tempest, day after day …Sometimes more than 200 sick would be embarked in
one day, but Mrs. Seacole was always equal, to the occasion". Seacole did
more than carry tea to the suffering soldiers. She often carried bags of lint, bandages,
needles and thread to tend to the wounds of soldiers.
In September 1855, Seacole became the
first British woman to enter Sevastopol after it fell. She toured the broken
town with refreshments and visited the hospitals crowded with thousands of dead
and dying Russians. Her foreign appearance drew the attentions of French
looters, but she was rescued by a passing officer. She looted some items from
the city, which randomly included a church bell and a 10 ft painting of
the Madonna.
The business of Seacole and Day
prospered in the interim period, with the officers taking the opportunity to
enjoy themselves in the quieter days. There were theatrical performances and
horse-racing events for which Seacole provided catering. Seacole was joined by
a 14-year-old girl described as "the Egyptian beauty, Mrs Seacole's
daughter Sarah". There rumours that she was Mary’s illegitimate child, but
was more likely to have been the illegitimate child of her business partner.
The Treaty of Paris was signed on 30 March 1856,
after which the soldiers left Crimea putting Mary in a difficult financial
position. She attempted to sell as much as possible before the soldiers left,
but was forced to auction many expensive goods for lower-than-expected prices
to the Russian. The evacuation of the Allied armies was formally completed at
Balaclava on 9 July 1856, with Seacole "... conspicuous in the
foreground ... dressed in a plaid riding-habit ...". Mary
was one of the last to leave Crimea, returning to England "poorer than
[she] left it".However, she had left a lasting impact on the soldiers, as
a paper reported: "Perhaps at first the authorities looked askant at the
woman-volunteer; but they soon found her worth and utility…Mother Seacole was a
household word in the camp...she attended many patients, nursed many sick, and
earned the good will and gratitude of hundreds". Seacole returned to
England destitute and sickly. She was declared bankrupt in November 1856.
Seacole began to wear military medals including the
British Crimea Medal, the French Légion d'honneur and the Turkish Order of
the Medjidie medal. However,
there is no formal evidence of her having been presented with one so it seems
likely that she purchased the medals to display her respect for her “sons” in
the Army.
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Media awareness of Mary’s
difficulties resulted in a fundraising campaign to which many prominent people
donated. This moved her out of bankruptcy but she remained poor and struggiing.
In Punch's 30 May edition, she was heavily criticised for a letter
she sent begging her favorite magazine, which she claimed to have often read to
her British Crimean War patients, to assist her in gaining donations. Further
fund-raising and literary mentions kept Seacole in the public eye. In May 1857
she wanted to travel to India, to minister to the wounded of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Another
successful fundraiser supported by the military raised her £57, a quarter of
which had to pay for the event itself.
Her autobiography, Wonderful
Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, was published in 1857, the first
autobiography written by a black woman in Britain. She wrote of her
childhood practising medicine on domestic animals and of her destitution on
returning to London while others had returned wealthy. She writes that she was
personally protected by her soldier “sons” on the battle field. She concluded
by descriving her career as her ‘pride and pleasure.’ It was received
favourably: "If singleness of heart, true charity and Christian works- of
trials and sufferings, dangers and perils, encountered boldly by a helpless
women on her errand of mercy in the camp and in the battlefield can excite
sympathy or move curiosity, Mary Seacole will have many friends and many
readers".
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Around 1860, Mary became a Roman
Catholic and returned to a newly-empoverished Jamacia, where she became a
prominent figure. However, by 1867 she was again running low on funds and the
Seacole fund was resurrected in London, with new patrons including the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of Cambridge, and many other
senior military officers. The fund burgeoned, and Seacole was able to buy land on
which to build a home and a rental property.
By 1870, Seacole was back in London,
possibly enticed by the prospect of aiding the medical efforts of the
Franco-Prussian War. It was at this time Nightingale wrote her letter to insinuating
that Seacole had kept a "bad house" in Crimea, and was responsible
for "much drunkenness and improper conduct".
In London, Seacole joined the
periphery of the royal circle, sitting for a marble bust that was shown at The
Great Exhibition and becoming a personal masseuse to the Princess of Wales who
was suffering from arthritis.
Seacole died of apoplexy in London in
1881. While well known at the end of her life, Seacole rapidly faded from British
public memory. However, in recent years there has been a resurgence of interest
in her and efforts to properly acknowledge her achievements. She has become an
example of racial attitudes and social injustices in Britain in the nineteenth
century. She was cited as an example of "hidden" black history
in Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses (1988): "See, here is Mary
Seacole, who did as much in the Crimea as another magic-lamping lady, but,
being dark, could scarce be seen for the flame of Florence's candle." She
has been better remembered in the Caribbean.
By the 21st century, Seacole was much
more prominent in British history. Several buildings and entities, mainly
connected with health care, were named after her. In 2005, Boris Johnson wrote of
learning about Seacole from his daughter's school and speculated: "I find
myself facing the grim possibility that it was my own education that was
blinkered." In 2007 Seacole was introduced into the National Curriculum, and her life
story is taught at many primary schools in the UK alongside that of Florence
Nightingale. In 2004, she was voted Greatest Black Briton.
A controversial statue of Seacole was
erected at St Thomas’ Hospital in London in 2016. It is inscribed with the
words written by Russell in The Times in 1857:"I trust
that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her
wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some of
her illustrious dead.’
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Mary Seacole was a successful
mixed-race immigrant to Britain who led an eventful life. She was kind and
generous who was popular with all those who knew her. While her cures have been
vastly exaggerated, she doubtless did what she could to ease suffering, when no
effective cures existed.
Seacole's recognition has been
controversial as it is seen as disrespectful to Florence Nightingale. A letter to The Times from the
Florence Nightingale Society and signed by members including historians asserted that "Seacole's battlefield
excursions ... took place post-battle, after selling wine and sandwiches to
spectators. Mrs Seacole was a kind and generous businesswoman, but was not a
frequenter of the battlefield "under fire" or a pioneer of nursing…She
deserves much credit for rising to the occasion, but her tea and lemonade did
not save lives, pioneer nursing or advance health care".
However, other historians maintain
that claims that Seacole only served "tea and lemonade" do a
disservice to the tradition of Jamaican "doctresses". They all used
herbal remedies and hygienic practices in the late eighteenth century, long
before Nightingale. Mark Bostridge points out that Seacole's experience far
outstripped Nightingale's, and that the Jamaican's work comprised preparing
medicines, diagnosis, and minor surgery. They posit that race plays a part in
the resistance to Seacole by some of Nightingale's supporters, stating that in
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Seacole often had greater
success than the European-trained doctors. These doctresses of Jamaica
practised hygiene long before Nightingale, and it is possible that Nightingale
learned about the value of hygiene in nursing from the practices of Seacole.
At the end of 2012 it was reported
that Mary Seacole was to be removed from the National Curriculum. A lot of
commentators do not accept the view that Seacole's accomplishments were
exaggerated, suggesting that this idea is propositioned by the English elite
that was determined to suppress and hide the black contribution in Britain. Helen
Seaton observes that Nightingale fitted the English ideal of a Victorian
heroine more than a dark-skinned Seacole, who battled racial prejudice who did
not understand her ways. In 2013 Operation Black Vote succeeded in petitioning
parliament to keep Mary on the curriculum.
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