Comments on: Unsung Heroes: Mary Seacole

By: Miranda

Miranda — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 20:09:37 +0000

In reply to Lola.

I’m currently trying to find a watchable clip of that sketch! There’s loads on YouTube but not that specific bit, sigh.

Loving the little I’ve seen of the HH series, though. I was obsessed with the books as a child and have just discovered the TV spinoff…

By: Lola

Lola — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 21:30:00 +0000

This is why I was so pleased to see a Mary Seacole sketch feature in ‘Horrible Histories’. This show is very popular and has a section about history being wrong with a detective called Cliff Whitelie. The sketch showed her aguing with Florence Nightingale and winning and showing that she was overlooked because of colour, it was very simple but great to know that kids are more likely to know about her.

By: Kim

Kim — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:21:26 +0000

What an inspiration story and right when I needed to hear it. It’s something that we should all be taught about but she was overshadowed by Florence Nightingale in my education at least. Thank you for this.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 09:21:32 +0000

An addendum to this that I didn’t manage to fit into the main post: The relationship between Nightingale and Seacole was a somewhat complex one. Seacole approached the MP Harry Verney in 1870, seeking to offer her assistance in the Franco-Prussian war; Verney was Nightingale’s brother-in-law and it appears Nightingale wrote him a letter describing Seacole’s Crimean hospital as a “bad house”, meaning a brothel. She accused Seacole of promoting drunkeness, and these letters probably went a long way to Seacole’s offer to help being rejected.
On the other hand however, when Seacole returned in poverty from the Crimean Nightingale made a large anonymous donation to the fund that was established to provide for her.

There’s more on this in Mark Bostridge’s ‘Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend’.