Mary Seacole

 Mary Seacole 

Date of birth  23 November 1805 

Date of death: 14 May 1881

Mary Jane Seacole was a British-Jamaican nurse, healer, and businesswoman who set up the "British Hotel" behind the lines during the Crimean War 

Mary Seacole and the Crimean War

Mary returned to Kingston in 1853, but she didn’t stay long. On hearing news of British soldiers going off to Russia to fight in the bloody battles of the Crimean War, she wanted to help.

And so…off she went to the War Office in London to requesting to join Florence Nightingale and her team of nurses treating wounded and sick soldiers in the Crimea!

Sadly, Mary was turned down, along with several other nurses. But was that enough to stop Mary? No way! Together with her friend Thomas Day, in 1866 she set off to the Crimea in a ship stocked with medical supplies.

She arrived in a terrible state. Many of the soldiers were cold, dirty, and hungry, and those that were sick and wounded weren’t being cared for.

Mary decided something had to be done and so, with her loyal friend Thomas, she opened a “British Hotel” near to the battlefields.

To be clear, this wasn’t the kind of ‘hotel’ you’d expect to stay in on your holidays, gang – it was a hut made of metal sheets, where soldiers could rest and buy hot food, drinks, and equipment

Mary used the money spent there to help treat and care for sick and wounded soldiers.

After the Crimean War ended, Mary returned to London with very little money and in poor health. But her hard work didn’t go unrecognized – many of the soldiers wrote to the newspapers about all she had done for them, and 80,000 people attended a charity gala in 1857 to raise money for her.

She also received several medals for her bravery from governments in different countries.

In the last 20 years of her life, Mary led a quiet life, spending her time between London and Jamaica – where she went to escape cold winters. She died in 1881 in Kensal Green, London.