Mary Seacole

19th century Britain fought a brutal and the sheer scale of suffering inspired Florence Nightingale to pioneer the ideas of modern nursing it made her an icon of Victorian virtue but the cult of the Lady of the land has cast a shadow over another hero one of equal stature and significance this forgotten angel of the Crimea was a doctor who became a legend among British troops at the front line middle-aged illegitimate only from the outer reaches of the British Empire she was one of the most unlikely celebrities of the Victorian age her name was Mary Seacole after a century of obscurity Mary Seacole is reclaiming her place in history this is the story of our woman from Jamaica won the hearts of the British public in 1857 Mary Seacole was so famous that 80,000 people turned out to honor her as a Crimean hero at the height of her fame she published her memoir the wonderful adventures of mrs. Seco in many lands it was a page-turning romp and the first autobiography by a free black woman in the British Empire I was born in the island of Jamaica some time in the present century I may well be excused giving the precise date of this important event but I do not mind confessing that the century and myself were both young together and have grew on side by side into age and consequence Mary Seacole was a Creole the term used for anyone born in Jamaica at the time of her birth in 1805 most Jamaicans worked as slaves for their British masters but Mary liked her mixed-race mother was born free I am a Creole and have good scotch blood costs and in my veins my father was a soldier of an old Scotch family and to him I often trismus sympathy for the pomp and pride of glorious war she was very proud of her Scottish ancestry Mary Seacole would have been born into a Jamaica where the lighter you are in terms of your skin color the higher you were on the Status ladder and so the the Scottish plaintiff or background would have brought her pride because it gave her an inroad into white society her mixed ancestry may have ranked her above the mass of Jamaicans but even free people of color were kept in their place by the whites they'd faced a series of limitations they couldn't vote they couldn't participate in public office if they went to church they had to they had to pray in a different pew when they were buried they were buried in a separate burial ground when they went to the theater they entered by a different door so their connection with the white community even though they had familial connections with the white community was often difficult often problematic among the few occupations open to free coloreds were those catering to whites Mary's mother ran one of Kingston's top hotels and it was patronized by the elite of the British Army the secret of its success was that it offered far more than home comforts Mary Seacole and her mother were doctress women who had a knowledge of herbs of local indigenous medicine could cure various illnesses at a time when some trained medical doctors didn't have a clue about tropical diseases the hotel doubled as a hospital where sick officers were treated with traditional African remedies visiting British doctors were impressed one of the more open-minded of them wrote a book Thomas Dancer describing the particular remedies the particular herb the particular roots and seeds and concoctions that people like Mary used and he analyzed them and he said these are in many cases better than any of the Western medicines we have brought over they are used to treat very specific conditions and they work extremely well he said Mary C Cole's mother was renowned for her remedies for cholera dysentery and diarrhea she passed this local knowledge down to her daughter who also picked the reigns of visiting British doctors and surgeons one soldier nicknamed her contrary Mariette I was very young when I began to use what little knowledge I had acquired from watching my mother upon a great sufferer whatever disease was prevalent in Kingston be sure my poor doll soon contracted before long it was very natural that I should seek to extend my practice many luckless groups were made to simulate diseases and had forced down their reluctance ropes the remedies I deemed most likely to suit their supposed complaints and after time I ruled still higher in my ambition and despair and finding any other human patient I proceeded to use my medicines and essences upon me said the precocious child matured into a fully-fledged doctress and hotel iya in a new Jamaica the status of a free person of color was changing in 1830 the Jamaican House of Assembly passed legislation making free people of color the legal equals of whites meri was able to do what her own mother could not and marry her white lover in 1836 she accepted the hand of an Englishman from a respectable naval family from brittle well in Essex Edwyn Horatio Hamilton Zico was Admiral Nelson's godson he was a merchant and together they opened a store he would give his wife ample opportunity to practice her skills poor man he was very delicate I suspect that in many ways it was a marriage of convenience on both sides that Edwin Seacole who it's clear was sickly needed a good nurse on the other hand Mary as any sensible Creole woman in that period would have thought would have seen probably fairly well-off white man as a very good stepping stone into the elite of Kingston society I kept him alive by kind nursed and as long as I could but at last he grew so ill that he died the death of her husband was a major setback forcing Mary to make her own way in the world at the age of 45 she looked beyond Jamaica and pinned her future hopes on opening a hotel in a wild frontier town in Panama the proud Creole who saw herself as the equal of any white was about to set foot in a world where black people of any shade were truly second-class citizens Mary Seacole arrived in Panama in 1851 and found a country awash with gold prospectors free wheelers and disease she was undaunted I do not know what it is to be indolent all my life long I have followed my inclination to be up and doing and have never lacked the determination to carry out no issues a cholera epidemic gave Mary Seacole a dramatic opportunity to prove her skills she was certainly a very proactive for her time she picked up all the typical remedies that she felt were useful at the same time obviously she did work under the specific circumstances of mid nineteenth century medicine they were completely different from what we have now we have to remember not a single of the synthetic drugs which we have available now we're available then the simplest remedies are the best mustard plasters and emetics and calomel if a patient is thirsty give him water which cinnamon has been boiled one of the really interesting remedies is cinnamon which have been a balled involve and then you drink this resulting tea cinnamon is a very aromatic herb I think the main effect goes back to its romantic properties these aromatic properties will have helped with sort of gastrointestinal cramps and similar things so it's in a way what we today call oral rehydration therapy in a Mary Seacole way she practiced the full range of her healing skills from suturing wounds to treating fever every patient is different you must understand the needs of each some will respond to roping over with warm oil and comfort spirits of wine above all I never neglect to apply mustard port assist to the stomach the spine and the neck and particularly to keep a patient warm about the region of the heart well if we look at Marisa Cole and her role in 19th century medicine she obviously is very much of a healer coming from these classical African Caribbean traditions all these provide the community with on the one hand plant and mineral based medication but also with advice also with spiritual support looking after people and looking after their very personal needs Mary Seacole is a prime example of such a hands-on approach her medicine worked she could treat the Prospectus cholera for their prejudice however she had no cure in an extraordinary encounter set down in her book Seco was confronted by their overt racism gentlemen I know you rejoice in joining me in a toast antici : gentlemen we can't do enough for her after what she done for us when the Time of Cholera was among us huh and I calculate I calculate that you're his next desire but she's not totally whacked but he rejoiced with me that she's so many shades from being an entirely black and I guess I guess that if we could bleach her by any means we would and make her acceptable in any society she deserves gentlemen I give you an T Seco Mary was incandescent she wanted to be regarded as mrs. C Cole a person of consequence and this American was just bundling her with all the other busybody old ladies and all the other black people that he come across she splashed up for American down with a twist of the foot gentlemen I return my best wishes for your kindness and drinkin my health but I must say that I don't altogether appreciate your friends kind wishes with respect to my complexion if it had been as dark as any [ __ ] I'd be just as happy and is useful and is much respected by those whose respect I value as to his offer of bleaching me I should even if it were practicable decline it without any thanks as to the society which this process may gain me admission to all I can see is judging by the specimens I have met with here and elsewhere I do not think I would lose much by being excluded from it so gentlemen I drink to you and the general Reformation of American manners to report this incident with such candor was extraordinary for its time it confronted her white Victorian leaders with the reality of racism and with her blackness she did not deny her black heritage she did not have to express affinity for her black mother her black ancestors but she did now I must say that that was not typical of collards in Jamaica in the 19th century three colored people in Jamaica expressed more of a solidarity with white society than with black society she was extremely concerned in her book to challenge any suggestion of pigeonholing for any Victorian woman to say by me look at me listen to me this is what I want to be it's incredibly modern concept but she did so well with it the outbreak of war in Europe would finally bring Mary Seacole to the attention of the British public in 1854 Britain sent thousands of soldiers to fight the Russians in the Crimean War it was a disaster and the shockwaves were felt in every corner of the British Empire as Mary Seacole read of soldiers she had known and treated in Jamaica sailing to their fate in Britain public outcry at the mismanagement of the war was about to bring down the government very soon after the Crimean campaign began it became very clear back home that there were certain essential and crucial things that were lacking and these were things that were likely to prejudice the whole campaign there were quite simple things simple medicines food drink clothes comfort somebody just to boost the morale of the soldiers the loss of life in the Crimea was unprecedented but of almost 23,000 British fatalities less than 5,000 died from battle wounds 18,000 were killed by tropical diseases there were so many things lacking in the Crimea that Mary was qualified to provide she recognized that there was a Mary Seacole shaped chasm in the Crimea and she went out to finish what delight should I not experience if I could be useful to my own son's suffering for a cause it was so glorious to fight and bleed for I made up my mind if the army wanted nurses they'd be glad of me in autumn 1854 Mary Seacole set sail on the 20-day voyage to England at the same time another extraordinary woman was sailing for Turkey her mission was to bring order to the chaos of the British Army Hospital in Constantinople florence Nightingale's ambition was to introduce efficiency and cleanliness to the care of the sick what she needed most were qualified staff she took with her 38 nurses few of them familiar with the disease's raging in the Crimea a further 46 recruits would you two set out two months later and a xlvii candidate was about to volunteer her services at interview on arrival in London Mary Seacole headed straight for the corridors of power in Whitehall my first idea was to apply to the War Office for the post of hospital nurse Mary never doubted for a minute that when she got to London she would be snapped up she knew that she had the instincts to go and make a real difference to the men who are out there Mary Seacole roamed the headquarters of the British Empire a place to which her colonial upbringing told her she belonged she brought references from high-ranking officers and medical staff she'd known and treated in Jamaica she was turned down by the War Office rejected by the quartermaster general's department and refused by the medical office had it not been for my old strong mindedness I should have given up the scheme a score of times in as many days so regularly did each successive day give birth to a fresh set of rebuffs and disappointment willingly had they accepted me I would have worked for the wounded in return for bread and water nowhere was the establishments attitude clearer then amongst the women recruiting for florence Nightingale's army hospital in turkey once again i tried and had an interview this time with one of miss nightingales companions she gave me the same reply but I read in her face the fact that had there been a vacancy I should not have been chosen to fill it one cold evening I stood in the Twilight which was fast deepening into wintry night and looked back upon the ruins of my last castle in the air doubts and suspicions arose in my heart did these ladies shrink from accepting my aid because my blood flowed beneath the somewhat dusky skin than theirs it was the first time that she admits to feeling crushed when she heard that that florence Nightingale's outfit didn't want to employ her but in a way she used it to advantage as she always used any adversity to advantage she invested that that shock and that disappointment and turned it into the vigor that would send her out there to do what she wanted to do anyway snubbed by the establishment Mary Seacole fell back on the skills that had always served her so well she would head to the epicenter of the bloodiest war zone in memory and open a Jamaican hotel it took little more than a good night's rest to strengthen my determination let what might happen to the Crimea I would go destined for the frontline in Russia Mary Seacole couldn't resist the temptation to visit the British Army Hospital in Turkey that had rejected her nurse has passed in and out with noiseless tread and subdued manner I thought many of them had that strange expression of the eyes which those who have gazed long unsealed of war or horror seldom leaves Scutari Hospital was a place of regimentation and strict discipline with limited resources Florence Nightingale ran the hospital with an iron hand I don't think they would ever had fitted into florence Nightingale's system I can't imagine Mary with all her feistiness and her opinionated manner and also fundamentally totally different methodology which was hands on by the bedside holding a dying man not standing at a distance as Seco bumped into old friends from Jamaica she instinctively broke one of nightingales most cherished rules nurses should not fraternize with patients this is some slight risk of given offense I could not resist the temptation of lending a helping hand here and there easing a stiff bandage that was given pain or replacing one that had slipped or no this is disgusting this will never do nightingales stuff assumed Mary Seacole was looking for a job the stage was set two of the most powerful personalities in British medicine were about to come face to face a slight figure in the nurse's dress with a peel gentle and above all firm face resting lightly in the palm of one white hand while the other supports the elbow a position which gives to her countenance a keen inquiring expression which is rather mocked what do you want to see Co anything we can do for you if it lies within my power I shall be very happy I just need a rule for tonight as it's too dark to return to my ship sadly it will be arranged Florence Nightingale ignite that English woman whose name shall never die but sound on the lips of British men until the hour of doom one thought never left my mind as I walk through those fearful miles of suffering in that great Hospital if it is so here what must it be like at the scene of war I felt happy in the conviction that I must be useful three or four days nearer to the soldiers pressing once than this florence Nightingale's hospital was in Turkey four days sail from the frontline in Russia many wounded men refused to risk the journey Mary Seacole wanted to get as close to the war zone as she could she stopped at a small patch of land just a few miles from the front and we created the Jamaica of her youth in just a few weeks she had recycled timbers and sheets of metal dredged from the harbor to conjure out of nowhere a restaurant general store and clinic rolled into one in typical seco fashion she called it the British hotel you might get everything at Mother c-cold from an anchor to a needle for the outer man linen and hosiery boots and shoes and for the inner man salmon lobsters and oysters and tins wild fowl curry powder snuff and currant jelly all you would have stumbled upon of Irish I so wish that we had an illustration at the outside of the British hotel in the Crimea it's wonderful from the inside but outside it must have looked at straw Denis it was built from bits and bobs from flotsam and jetsam it was a very organic place with Mary pulsing at the middle of it I think in her own very small way I put that British hotel stranded in the middle of nowhere meri provided a little oasis of conviviality to of home of laughter of normal human intercourse of behavior where people could be happy and forget war whatever confusion and disorder existed elsewhere comfort and order one always to be found at the British hotel there are some lovely accounts where soldiers turn up at late at night in this uproarious party's going on with much drinking and others talk about arriving and having long talks into the night about the old days in the West Indies but the British Hotel was much more than an officer's club it was a business whose profits would finance a higher purpose quite a few of the soldier eyewitnesses in the Crimea said she didn't not blush to charge one and six for a bottle of Porter or the highest price for her best champagne but the fact is she also made clear that it was because the well-paid novice in the work cause that helped transport things to the front because they could afford her high prices and because obviously the officers could that subsidized her that enabled her to keep going making her herbal remedies and giving them out free to those without money who needed help within weeks of opening the British Hotel had become the soldiers Hospital choice marry cycles treatments for cholera and dysentery actually worked her success attracted the attention of the crimean war correspondent William Howard Russell of the times her hutch was surrounded every morning by the rough navies and land transport men who had a faith in her proficiency in the healing art which she justified by many cures new research has revealed that Mary Seacole was described to vividly in more than twenty I witness accounts of the war I was severely attacked by diarrhea after landing in the Crimea and nothing served me until I called on mrs. C Cole she gave me her medicine but once and I was cured she was principal medical officer to the army work score and at the time of the cholera last summer used to prescribe pomegranate juice which was an almost never failing specific the use of pomegranate was typically effective it is highly astringent and it's been used quite extensively internally mostly in the treatment of diarrhea this actually has a beneficial effects so she's simply and very under matically took the experience she brought with her and applied it under local circumstances she does integrate things which were highly uncommon and completely unheard of by the medical establishment in Britain for a soldier sitting there under this enormous ly difficult circumstances somebody like Mary must have come like an angel because she finally did something from his perspective it couldn't have been more different at Scutari with its miles of bed lined corridors where one-to-one treatment was virtually impossible Florence Nightingale was a superb but impersonal administrator patients were treated with fairness but detachment she would not at us and we could only kiss her shadow in one other respect the two women were very different Florence Nightingale visited the Crimea only twice during the war Mary Seacole was at the frontline almost every day mrs. C ko is often seen riding out to the front with baskets of medicines of her own preparation her never-failing presents among wounded after the battle and assisting the move made her beloved by the rank-and-file of the whole army at the Battle of Chania she was found administering creature comforts to the wounded utterly unmindful of the short and shell flying about her in directions in the teeth of battle Mary Seacole proved herself as a hands-on surgeon as William Howard Russell of the times told his readers I have witnessed her devotion and courage I've seen her go down under fire with her store of creature comforts for our wounded men and a more tender or skillful hand about a wound on a broken limb could not be found among our best surgeons if there's one thing that all the eyewitnesses concur on is that Mary was effectively legendary throughout the Crimea there was this enormous affection for her amusement too because of her rather loud and domineering manner and her eccentric style of dress wearing sort of plumed hats in the midst of war Mary Seacole the child of the British Army in Jamaica had effectively become its mother in the Crimea the deaths in the trenches touched me very deeply it was very usual when a young officer was ordered into the trenches for him to ride down to the hotel to dine they seldom failed on those occasions to shake my hand at party I used to think it was like having a large family of children ill with fever and dreading to hear which one had passed away the light my dear madam will you do me the favor to accept the enclosed trifle in remembrance of that dear son whose last moments were soothed by your kindness death is always terrible no one need be ashamed to fear it I have seen some brave men die trembling like children whereas others who have spent their lives in avoidance of the least danger or trouble I've drawn their last painful breath like heroes striking their foes to the last wrapping them a victory and making their defeat a triumph if I were to speak of all the nameless horrors of that spring as plainly as I could I should disgust you but a D in the Crimea was a long time to give to grief by the time British soldiers were finally sent home after defeating the Russians in 1856 Mary Seacole had served 18 months in the Crimea when the war ended and her boys were all sent off here there are many on to the Indian Mutiny she was completely rudderless she'd lost her huge family all this going home seemed strange and somewhat sad and sometimes I felt that I could not sympathise with the glad faces and happy hearts of those who were looking forward to the delights of home for I clearly had no home to go to the Jamaican doctress who had risked so much in her role as a mother of the British Army faced the prospect of returning to London and nobody she had invested all her capital in new supplies it seemed everything she owned would now fall into Russian hands I was glad to hear of peace although it must have been apparent to everyone that it would cause my Mary Seacole returned to London with nothing when Mary Seco returns to London from the Crimean War in 1856 she was bankrupt although I was not ashamed of poverty beginning life again in the autumn I mean late in the summer of life is hard uphill work in her rented rooms in Covent Garden she could comfort herself with the for government medals she'd received for her kindness to British soldiers and the British soldiers were not about to forget her a roster of Crimean veterans organized a spectacular fundraising gala for Mary Seacole in July 1857 at London's Royal Surrey Gardens the orchestra was immense formed by the bands of the regiment's of the guards the Royal Engineers the Royal Artillery and the 11th hussars over four consecutive nights 80,000 people turned up and bought tickets to celebrate their Crimean hero the gardens and the splendid Music Hall were crowded every evening and mrs. C Cole as soon as she was recognized was greeted with loud chairs and every demonstration of a deity at the end of both the first and second parts of the entertainment the name of mrs. Seco was shouted by a thousand voices she was a real celebrity it's extraordinary that this black woman whom nobody one had heard of before nobody outside the military should arrive in London and be celebrated and carried around on soldier's shoulders it was just completely unprecedented never one to miss a commercial opportunity she used the occasion to launch her memoirs Mary's autobiography the wonderful adventures of mrs. seccomb the title itself tells you how extravagant the book it is it's a masterful exercise in self-publicity she was fully in charge of her image the whole time but she managed to marry that with I think a deeply felt conviction that she wanted to be useful to people the services of mrs. C Corps in the Crimea Mary C Cole's fame was no flash in the pan deserve recognition and reward from the Army Navy and British a decade later her supporters in the upper echelon of British society joins together to provide her with a pension and the Queen haven't been graciously pleased to express her approbation of mrs. sequel service Queen Victoria donated 50 pounds towards her welfare in old age Alexandra Princess of Wales employed her as a masters and the Queen's nephew count glycans sculpt determines Mary Seacole was finally accepted in the bosom of the British Empire his the Prince of Wales His Royal Highness the Duke of it but not everyone welcomes seekers recognition a recently discovered letter written by Florence Nightingale reveals her indignation at sea curls celebrity she felt Queen Victoria had been duped a shameful ignorant imposter was practiced on the Queen who subscribed to the sea Cove testimonial the fundamental problem for Florence Nightingale was that Mary didn't operate just as a nurse under Florence's thumb at Scutari the problem was that Mary was a woman of business she made money and the biggest problem of all was that she sold alcohol nightingales antagonism went further most damningly when Mary Seacole once again volunteered her services to the nation Florence Nightingale intervened with a poisonous job reference insinuating that she was little more than a brothel keeper she kept I will not call it a bad house but something not very unlike it in the Crimean War anyone who employs mrs. Seco will introduce much kindness also much drunkenness and improper conduct wherever she is yet even nightingales slanderous disapproval couldn't dent siècles reputation punch magazine summarized her unique contribution be the right man in the right place who can the right woman was Dame Seacole Mary Seacole died in her sleep in London on the 14th of May 1881 she was 76 reader now that we've come to the end of this chapter please look back and see how hard the right woman had to struggle to convey herself to the right place for a while the seco legend was sustained by the veterans who knew and loved her when they died there was no one left to carry her flame it was the sort of celebrity that burns very brightly while you're alive but I think when you die it goes out as Mary Seacole was forgotten so do with a herbal and holistic medicines from the Caribbean that had helped so many in the Crimea they were ignored by the medical orthodoxy of the town this was not part of the British healing tradition and the prettiest healing tradition was much more formal much more focused on doing things in a medical way as it was seen them and obviously in keeping a distance between the patient the other and the healer if Mary Seacole was the wrong kind of doctor for late 19th century Britain the greater obstacle to her recognition was the prejudice that she had the wrong color skin there's no doubt that attitude towards blacks racial attitudes hardened significantly we know this to be the case we know the after-effects of the Indian Mutiny we know the after-effects of the moor have a rebellion in Jamaica we know that all these things helped harden racial attitudes within this country for most of the 20th century Britain saw no need for black heroes Mary seco however made a comeback in 1984 when her autobiography was republished ever since interest in her life has gained momentum as people have once again discovered her remarkable story Mary Seacole was a phenomenal woman an independent free spirited woman Mary Seacole success to the Crimea indeed her success in Panama had to do with her experiences her training her background her preparation in Jamaica if you take Mary sequel's experiences in the Crimea away from her Jamaican background then you miss what made her Mary Seacole what made her such a woman Mary Seacole is now studied by every school child in Britain as part of the National Curriculum and in a nationwide poll in 2004 she was voted greatest black Briton of all time in the same year a long-lost portrait of her was rediscovered by Helen Rappaport it now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery facing Florence Nightingale it's an image of the mature Mary after the war very proud very dignified and its iconic because she wears the red scarf of the Jamaican of the Creole which is her signifier she's a proud to make and that she also wears her medals and she's a proud British subject and it's an amalgam of the two sides of Mary her Britishness and her Jamaican nurse it's a wonderful image of an extraordinary woman with her chin tilted up saying Here I am I am a Crimean heroin in the bicentenary of her birth the unique self-made woman who is neither black nor white who was both a fiercely proud Jamaican and an ardent British patriot has reclaimed her place at the heart of history you

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Length: 49min 3sec (2943 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 07 2015