Oct 2020
Mary Seacole, Jamaican born Nurse and Adventurer
Celebrating inspirational leaders in health and social care #BlackHistoryMonth
Mary Seacole, Jamaican born Nurse and Adventurer
Mary Seacole was a daring adventurer of the 19th century. A Jamaican woman of mixed race, she was awarded the Order of Merit posthumously by the Government of Jamaica and in 2004, Mary was voted the “Greatest Black Briton.”
Born Mary Jane Grant, the daughter of James Grant, a Scottish Lieutenant in the British Army, and a free Jamaican woman. Her mother, nicknamed "The Doctress", was a healer who used traditional Caribbean and African herbal remedies and ran Blundell Hall, a boarding house, considered one of the best hotels in Kingston.
Jamaican doctresses mastered folk medicine, had a vast knowledge of tropical diseases, and had a general practitioner's skill in treating ailments and injuries. The role of a doctress in Jamaica was a mixture of a nurse, midwife, masseuse and herbalist. They practiced the use of good hygiene a century before Florence Nightingale wrote about its importance.
At Blundell Hall, Seacole acquired her caring skills, which included the use of hygiene, ventilation, warmth, hydration, rest, empathy, good nutrition and care for the dying. Blundell Hall also served as a convalescent home for military and naval staff recuperating from illnesses such as cholera and yellow fever. Because of her family's close ties with the army, she was able to observe the practices of military doctors and combine that knowledge with the West African remedies she acquired from her mother.
In late 18th and early 19th century Jamaica, neonatal deaths were more than a quarter of total births, at a time when European doctors were employing questionable practices such as mercury pills and the bleeding of the patient. However, Seacole, used traditional West African herbal remedies and hygienic practices and boasted that she never lost a mother or child.
In November 1836 Mary married Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole, it was a short marriage with Edwin passing away in October 1844. Seacole absorbed herself in work, declining many offers of marriage. She treated patients in the cholera epidemic of 1850, which killed 32,000 Jamaicans. From 1851 – 1854 Seacole travelled Central America caring for those suffering with cholera before travelling to the Crimea.
When war broke out in the Crimea in the 1850s Mary applied for a nursing post in Britain but was rejected. Ever determined, she went under her own steam, setting up a hotel for recuperating soldiers and earning herself the title of the ‘Angel of Crimea’.
This left Mary bankrupt on her return to England. Her plight was highlighted in the British press which led to the creation of a fund, to which many of the military men she had cared for and prominent people donated, including Queen Victoria.
In 1857 an autobiographical account of her travels was published: Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, the first autobiography written by a black woman in Britain.
In 1860 Seacole retuned to Jamaica where she bought land and built a bungalow for herself and a larger property to rent out. By 1870 she returned to England and joined the periphery of the royal circle in London where she lived until her death in 1881.
Despite her achievements, Mary’s story laid buried for a century. Mary is now rightly honoured in both Jamaica and the UK. In 1981, 100 years after her death, a service was held (and has been held every year since) at her gravesite in London.