Unsung Heroes: Mary Seacole

“She gave her aid to all in need
To hungry, sick and cold
Open hand and heart, ready to give
Kind words, and acts, and gold.”

– Punch Magazine

The only known photograph of Mary, c.1873.

Mary Jane Seacole is perhaps somewhat better known than most of those appearing in this series, having been included in Britain’s National Curriculum and featured on postage stamps as part of the National Portrait Gallery’s 150^th anniversary. Despite this she stands as a perfect example of the sort of person we’re interested in here: one who went to extraordinary lengths to achieve their goals, facing risks and giving freely of their time and energy, yet without becoming a household name associated with awesomeness. In Seacole’s case this was primarily due to the fact that she’s been overshadowed in popular consciousness by the similarly impressive Florence Nightingale. So, let’s look back to the 19^th century and find out a little about the Crimean War’s other famous nurse.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805, Seacole was exposed to medicine from an early age. Her mother was a ‘doctress’, using Caribbean herbal remedies to treat diseases – chiefly the yellow fever that was endemic in Jamaica at the time – and Seacole followed in her footsteps. Travels throughout the Caribbean and Central America gave her the chance to broaden her knowledge of herbal treatments, and even to perform an autopsy on a victim of cholera in Panama, an experience she described as “decidedly useful”.

Cholera, along with yellow fever, was one of the biggest sources of patients throughout Seacole’s career. An outbreak hit Kingston in 1850, killing over 30,000 Jamaican people, and Seacole played a role in stopping the death toll from rising higher still. She would battle a cholera epidemic again in 1851 whilst visiting Panama, and a yellow fever outbreak upon returning to Jamaica in 1853. During this time she also began treating people surgically as well as herbally, helping victims of knife and gunshot wounds. Whilst her obvious skills earned her a measure of respect, that respect was tinged with both racial and sexual prejudices, often depicting her as someone who was talented “for a woman,” or “for a non-white.” In her autobiography, she remembers an American delivering a speech at a dinner in Panama, who said of her that “if we could bleach her by any means we would […] and thus make her acceptable in any company as she deserves to be.” This attitude quite rightfully incensed her.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the last time Seacole faced issues as a result of discrimination based on her gender or race. The outbreak of the Crimean War brought with it a concurrent outbreak of disease, especially cholera. Disease was soon proving more lethal to troops by far than injury at the hands of the enemy, and word went out about the need for trained medics. Seacole, as we have established, was something of an expert on cholera by this point, and set sail for Britain. She arrived carrying letters of recommendation from Jamaican and Panamanian doctors, and offered her services to the British Army. She was denied an interview, as the British Army were not entirely keen on female medics at the time.

Conditions in the Crimea, however, forced them to reconsider, with public outcry following an exposure in The Times leading them to form a nursing corps, headed up by Florence Nightingale. Seacole applied to join this group and was again rejected. This time, she felt, the rejection was due to her race.

Having run into two different strands of prejudice and having had her services refused twice, did Seacole go home? Did she return to Kingston, where her work would be appreciated, and where her fairly successful business was located? Of course not. There were people that needed helping, and she was an expert in the skills that would help them.

Seacole travelled to Crimea using her own funds, presenting herself at Nightingale’s hospital in Scutari. Once more she was rejected. So she she did what any incredibly determined badass would do: she built her own hospital. She didn’t have proper building materials or the finances to acquire them, so she built the hospital just outside Sevastopol, using salvaged metal, driftwood and packing cases. Because when you’re awesome you don’t let a little thing like not having a hospital or anything but the most rudimentary of construction supplies stand in the way of helping those in need.

Seacole provided treatment for the sick during the mornings, travelling out to the battlefield later in the day to tend to the wounded. This was often done with the battle still raging on; she would treat injured soldiers from both sides whilst under fire. She reportedly asked no payment for her services from those who were too poor to pay, accepting money only from those who could spare it. Despite this, and continuous thefts of her hospital’s supplies, she prospered, becoming a well-known figure amongst the soldiers in Crimea, who called her “Mother Seacole.” When Sevastopol fell during the autumn of 1855 she was the first woman to set foot in the captured city, again bringing supplies and healing to both sides.

Mary's blue plaque, Soho, London. Image by Flickr user Simon Hariyott, shared under a Creative Commons licence.

But following the war, Seacole did not fare well. With the fighting over there was no more need for her hospital, and little profit to be made from selling off the supplies there. Hounded by creditors, she returned to England destitute, having given everything she had to provide care to people who needed it. In return, the public took care of her, with several prominent people donating to a fund for her, encouraged by a plea from Punch magazine.

Following her death in 1881 Seacole’s impressive actions faded from public awareness, forgotten in favour of Nightingale for the larger part of a century. It has only been in the last decade or two that awareness and recognition of her deeds has begun to resurface.

I lingered behind, and stooping down, once more gathered little tufts of grass, and some simple blossoms from above the graves of some who in life had been very kind to me, and I left behind, in exchange, a few tears which were sincere.

A few days latter, and I stood on board a crowded steamer, taking my last look at the shores of the Crimea.

– Mary Seacole

Seacole’s autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole In Many Lands, is freely available from Project Gutenberg here.

• Unsung Heroes: a new series on BadRep spotlighting fascinating people we never learned about at school…
• Guest blogger Rob Mulligan… is a guest no longer! We’ve had such a good response to this series he’s boarded the good ship BadRep on an ongoing basis. Hurrah! He also blogs at Stuttering Demagogue. Stay tuned for future Heroes.