Mary Seacole Channeled by Karl Mollison 18Dec2018
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Seacole
Mary Seacole (1805 – 14 May 1881) was a British-Jamaican business woman and “nurse” who set up the “British Hotel” behind the lines during the Crimean War. She described this as “a mess-table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers”, and provided succour for wounded servicemen on the battlefield.
She acquired knowledge of herbal medicine in the Caribbean.
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.
She applied to the War Office to assist but was refused.
Florence Nightingale, who had little practical experience of cholera, was chosen to take a team of thirty-nine nurses to treat the sick soldiers after it was revealed that a large number of British soldiers were dying of cholera.
Mary Seacole’s 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. Unwilling to accept defeat, Mary started up
a business called the British Hotel but others referred to as “Mrs Seacole’s hut” a few miles from the battlefront.
Here she sold food and drink to the British officers and a canteen for the soldiers.
She became extremely popular among service personnel, who raised money for her when she faced destitution after the war.
After her death, she was largely forgotten for almost a century but today is celebrated as a woman who
successfully combated racial prejudice. Her autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole
in Many Lands (1857), is one of the earliest autobiographies of a mixed-race woman, although some aspects of its accuracy have been questioned.
Mary Seacole died of apoplexy in London on 14th May, 1881.
She was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1991. In 2004 she was voted the greatest black Briton.
The erection of a statue of her at St Thomas’ Hospital, London on 30 June 2016, describing her as a “pioneer nurse”, has generated controversy. Earlier controversy broke out in the United Kingdom late in 2012 over reports of a proposal to remove her from the UK’s National Curriculum.
War and the healers who go there; is there a grander story to be told?