Born: 23 November 1805, Jamaica
Died: 14 May 1881
Country most active: International
Also known as: Mary Jane Grant
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
Countless women have gone to war, not as soldiers but as those supporting the troops. Such was the case for Mary Seacole, a Jamaican nurse and businesswoman born in 1805, the daughter of a Scottish soldier and a free Jamaican woman of African descent. Her mother was a “doctress” who used her knowledge of traditional medicines to care for invalids at her boardinghouse. In addition to the skills she would have learned from her mother, Seacole traveled to the Bahamas, Haiti, and Cuba, expanding her knowledge, and gained experience nursing patients during a cholera epidemic in Panama and yellow fever in Jamaica. Many of those she cared for were British soldiers.
While in London in 1854, reports were starting to be made public about the lack of adequate supplies and nursing care for British troops in the Crimean War. Despite her skills and experience, she was rejected when she applied to serve as an army nurse, which Seacole believed was due to racism. But she wasn’t about to let that stop her. In 1855, the year she turned 50, she went to Crimea as a sutler, a businessperson who sells provisions to soldiers in warzones. She set up the British Hotel, selling food, medicine, and other supplies to the troops, as well as helping the sick and wounded at military hospitals. She would visit the battlefields, even under fire, to treat the injured. News of her work reached Britain, and “Mother Seacole” gained a reputation that rivaled Florence Nightingale’s.
But her generosity and good works left her in a dire situation at the end of the war, returning to England destitute and in poor health. When her circumstances came to public attention, a festival was organized in 1857 to raise money for her and honor her service to the troops, attracting thousands of people. That same year, she published her autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, which became a bestseller. She lived into her 70s, passing away in 1881.