Mary Seacole was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. Her father was
a Scottish army officer and her mother a free black woman who ran
a boarding house in Kingston. Mary's mother also treated people who
become ill. She was a great believer in the herbal medicines. These
medicines were based on the knowledge of slaves brought from Africa.
This knowledge was passed on to Mary and later she also become a 'doctress'.
In 1850 Kingston was hit
by a cholera
epidemic. Mary
Seacole, using herbal medicines, played an important role in dealing
with this disease. She also dealt successfully with a yellow fever
outbreak in Jamaica. Her fame as a medical practitioner grew and she
was soon carrying out operations on people suffering from knife and
gunshot wounds.
Mary loved travelling
and as a young woman visited the Bahamas, Haiti and Cuba. In these
countries she collected details of how people used local plants and
herbs to treat the sick. On one trip to Panama she helped treat people
during another cholera epidemic. Mary carried out an autopsy on one
victim and was therefore able to learn even more about the way the
disease attacked the body.
In 1853 Russia
invaded Turkey. Britain and France, concerned
about the growing power of Russia, went to Turkey's aid. This conflict
became known as the Crimean
War.
Soon after British soldiers
arrived in Turkey, they began going down with cholera
and malaria.
Within a few weeks an estimated 8,000 men were suffering from these
two diseases. At the time, disease was a far greater threat to soldiers
than was the enemy. In the Crimean War, of the 21,000 soldiers who
died, only 3,000 died from injuries received in battle.
When Mary Seacole heard
about the cholera
epidemic she
travelled to London
to offer her services to
the British Army. There was considerable
prejudice against women's involvement in medicine and her offer was
rejected. When The
Times publicised
the fact that a large number of British soldiers were dying of cholera
there was a public outcry, and the government was forced to change
its mind. Florence
Nightingale,
who had little practical experience of cholera, was chosen to take
a team of thirty-nine nurses to treat the sick soldiers.
Although Mary Seacole
was an expert at dealing with cholera,
her application to join Florence Nightingale's team was rejected.
Mary, who had become a successful business woman in Jamaica, decided
to travel to the Crimea at her own expense. She visited Florence Nightingale
at her hospital at Scutari but once again Mary's offer of help was
refused.
Unwilling to accept defeat,
Mary started up a business called the British Hotel, a few miles from
the battlefront. Here she sold food and drink to the British soldiers.
With the money she earned from her business Mary was able to finance
the medical treatment she gave to the soldiers.
Whereas Florence
Nightingale and
her nurses were based in a hospital several miles from the front,
Mary Seacole treated her patients on the battlefield. On several occasions
she was found treating wounded soldiers from both sides while the
battle was still going on.
After the war ended in
1856 Mary Seacole returned to England. She hoped to work as a nurse
in India but she was unable to raise the
necessary funds. Mary Seacole died in London
on May 14,1881.
Florence
Nightingale and Mary Seacole: Classroom Activities
(S1)
Mary
Seacole, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole (1857)
Simple
remedies which are available for the terrible diseases by which foreigners
are attacked (can be) found growing under the same circumstances which
produce the ills they minister to. So true is it, that beside the
nettle ever grows the cure for the sting.
(S2)
Mary Seacole wrote about the rejection of her offer of help during
the Crimean
War in her autobiography, Wonderful
Adventures of Mrs. Seacole (1857).
In my country, where people know our use, it would have been different;
but here (England) it was natural enough that they should laugh, good-naturedly
enough, at my offer... Once again I tried, and 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... Was it possible that American
prejudices against colour had some root here? Did these ladies shrink
from accepting my aid because my blood flowed beneath a somewhat duskier
skin than theirs?
(S3)
The Morning Advertiser (19 January, 1855)
She (Mary Seacole) is often
seen riding out to the front with baskets of medicines of her own
preparation, and this is particularly the case after an engagement
with the enemy.
(S4)
Wonderful
Adventures of Mrs Seacole (1857)
I was generally up and
busy by daybreak, sometimes earlier, for in the summer my bed had
no attractions strong enough to bind me to it after four. There was
plenty to do before the work of the day began. There was the poultry
to pluck and prepare for cooking, which had been killed on the previous
night; the joints to be cut up and got ready for the same purpose;
the medicines to be mixed; the store to be swept and cleaned.
By 7 o'clock the morning
coffee would be ready. From that time until 9 o'clock, officers on
duty in the neighbourhood or passing by would look in for breakfast.
About half past nine my sick patients began to show themselves. In
the following hour they came thickly and sometimes it was past twelve
before I had got through this duty. They came with every variety of
suffering and disease; the cases I most disliked were the frostbitten
fingers and feet in winter.
(S5)
Letter written by Sir John Hall, Inspector-General of Hospitals (30
June, 1856)
She (Mary Seacole) not only, from the knowledge she had acquired in
the West Indies, was enabled to administer appropriate remedies for
their ailments, but, what was of as much importance, she charitably
furnished them with proper nourishment, which they had no means of
obtaining except in hospital, and most of that class had an objection
to go into hospital.
(S6)
William
H. Russell, The
Times (27th September, 1855)
In the hour of their illness, these men have found a kind and successful
physician, a Mrs Seacole.
She is from Kingston (Jamaica) and she doctors and cures all manner
of men with extraordinary success. She is always in attendance near
the battlefield to aid the wounded, and has earned many a poor fellow's
blessing.
(S7)
Dr.
Reid, a surgeon in the British Army serving in the Crimea, wrote this
letter to his family in 1855.
Here I met a celebrated person. A coloured woman, Mrs Seacole. Out
of the goodness of
her heart and at her own expense she supplied hot tea to the poor
sufferers while they waited to be lifted into the boats (that took
them to the hospital).
She did not spare herself
if she could do any good to the suffering soldiers. In rain and snow,
day after day, she was at her post. With her stove and kettle, in
any shelter she could find, she brewed tea for all who wanted it -
and there were many.
(S8)
An extract from a poem published about Mary Seacole in Punch
Magazine (6th December, 1856)
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
And now the good soul
is "in a hole"
What soldier in all -the
land
To set her on her feet
again
Won't give a helping hand?
(S9)
Ziggy Alexander and Audrey Dewje, article about Mary Seacole (1984)
In March 1856, the war ended suddenly. Mrs Seacole returned to England
without any money. She tried to set up her business again selling
her wares to soldiers. By November her business had failed and she
was in the London Bankruptcy Court. The Times newspaper published
letters from people who wanted to set up a fund to repay her for the
money she had spent in the Crimea.
In 1867 another committee
was set up to help her. This time Queen Victoria supported it. She
thanked Mary Seacole for her work in the Crimea.
(S10)
Mary
Seacole, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole (1857)
A poor, little, brown-faced
orphan infant, scarce a year old, was dying (of cholera) in my arms,
and I was powerless to save it... towards morning the wee spirit left
this sinful world for the home above... how the idea first arose in
my mind I can hardly say - that, if it were possible to take this
little child and examine it, I should learn more of the terrible disease
which was sparing neither young nor old, and should know better how
to do battle with it... I followed the man who had taken the dead
child away to bury it, and bribed him to carry it by an unfrequented
path... I need not linger on this scene, nor give the readers the
results of my operation... But the knowledge I had obtained thus strangely
was very valuable to me, and was soon put into practice.
(S11)
Lady Alicia Blackwood, A Narrative of Personal Experiences and
Impressions during a Residence on the Bosphorous throughout the Crimean
War (1881)
She (Mary Seacole) had,
during the time of battle, and in the time of fearful distress, personally
spared no pains and no exertion to visit the field of woe, and minister
with her own hands such things as she could comfort, or alleviate
the sufferings of those around her; freely giving to such as could
not pay, and to many whose eyes were closing in death, from whom payment
could never be expected.
(S12)
Report in The
Times newspaper on the Royal
Guards Regimental Dinner (26 August, 1856)
Among the visitors was Mrs Seacole, whose appearance awakened the
most rapturous enthusiasm. The soldiers not only cheered her, but
chaired her around the gardens, and she might have suffered from the
oppressive attentions of her admirers, were it not that two sergeants
of extraordinary stature gallantly undertook to protect her from the
pressure of the crowd. However, the excellent lady did not appear
in the least alarmed, but, on the contrary, smiled most graciously
and seemed highly gratified.
(S13)
Mary Seacole's grave at St. Mary's
Catholic Cemetery, Harrow Road, London (S1)
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