Mary Seacole

This brief biography tells the story of Mary Seacole (1805-1881), a "Creole" woman from Jamaica, who was the daughter of a British officer and a Jamaican mother. Her fame in the contemporary public during and after the Crimean War (1853-1856) rivaled Florence Nightingale’s. Seacole had already worked as "doctores" in Jamaica and had helped soldiers and officers of the British colonial army during a Cholera pandemic. She had traveled widely before arriving in London in 1853, where her offer to volunteer as a nurse in the war was met with racism and refusal by the "Ladies Committe" that organized the voluntary nursing in the Crimea. Undaunted, Seacole set out independently to the Crimea, where she opend the "British Hotel" close to Balaklava and worked as a sutler, "doctores" and nurse.