Mary Seacole (Green)

Mary Seacole was a pioneering nurse and heroine of the Crimean War.

Born Mary Jane Grant, in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1805, her father was a Scottish soldier, and her mother was Jamaican. Mary learned her nursing skills from her mother, who kept a boarding house for invalid soldiers.

Although she was of mixed race, Mary and her family had few civil rights - they could not vote, hold public office or enter the professions.

In 1836, Mary married Edwin Seacole, but the marriage was shortlived, as Edwin died in 1844.

In 1854 she approached the war office to ask to be sent as an army nurse to the Crimea. Because of her ethnicity she was refused interviews with the war office and Elizabeth Herbert, the wife of the secretary of state for war who was recruiting nurses. Undaunted Seacole funded her own trip to the Crimea where she established the British Hotel near Balaclava to provide 'a mess-table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers'. On the battlefield she nursed the wounded and was known as Mother Seacole.

After the war she returned to England destitute and in ill health. The press highlighted her plight and money was raised through a grand military festival held over four nights at the Royal Surrey Gardens. The festival attracted thousands of people and was supported by lords, military commanders and almost a thousand artistes. She was awarded the Crimean Medal, the French Legion of Honour and a Turkish medal.

Mary Seacole did not come from a wealthy middle class background or have any formal training. Not only did she suffer from the restrictions placed on women at the time but she was also hindered in her nursing career by the colour of her skin. Despite these prejudices, she established herself as a pioneer of the nursing profession.