SEACOLE, MARY (born Mary Jane Grant, 23 November 1805–14 May 1881), British-Jamaican entrepreneur and nurse who worked in the Caribbean, Central America, Eastern Europe, and the United Kingdom. Her medical practice included effective traditional West African and Caribbean methods and remedies.
When the Crimean War broke out in 1853, Seacole requested that the British War Office send her to work with Florence Nightingale, as an army nurse. Seacole’s petition was rejected, so in 1854 she paid her own passage to the Crimea and set up the “British Hotel” for sick and wounded servicemen. She was highly regarded among the ranks of British soldiers and press, not only for her healing abilities but also as a cook and provisioner of necessities—even braving the front lines. She became known as “Mother Seacole.” And yet, despite her tireless efforts, her work has been overshadowed by Nightingale’s. Whereas Nightingale is credited with institutionalizing modern nursing practices and has become a national and global icon for the profession of nursing, Seacole’s role has essentially been written out of the historical record until recently—where forcible efforts have been made to elucidate histories of Seacole and her role as a nurse practitioner.
Seacole documented her life in her memoir, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, published in July 1857 by James Blackwood. She was, in essence, a historian in her own time, recording the everyday experiences of Creole women hoteliers like herself, New World transnational laborers, and women seeking mobility through writing, nursing, and the emerging discourses around philanthropy, foreign correspondence, and service in the burgeoning industry of modern warfare. Seacole occupies a contested territory in contemporary historical writing, and her representation leaves open room for narrating the stories of Black women navigating empire—their ambition and their desire for mobility and success— while contending with the patriarchal and racial constructions of colonial centers. Seacole was exceptional in many ways: she created a vanguard of Black mobility and global capital amid the colonial war efforts, but was also troubled by questions of race, gender, and equality within the uneven terrain of global Black dispossession. Today many healthcare facilities have been named after Mary Seacole. She was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1990. In 2004, she was voted the Greatest Black Briton by the Black-heritage website Every Generation. And in 2006 her portrait was printed on a British first-class stamp.