2023/01/01 by D. P. Griffon · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #European history and politics #Historical Gender and Feminism Studies #Soviet and Russian History
paper · doi:10.5325/nursinghistory.31.0035
openalex publication_date 2023/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/12/21
The Crimean War of 1854 gave Florence Nightingale the opportunity to escape the mundane life of an upper-class Victorian lady by establishing a nursing contingent to care for the British sick and wounded. Thus, she started a revolution in “respectable” occupations open to women.1 Little is known, however, of another woman, Mary Grant Seacole, who also tended the British casualties in this conflict. In fact, her role as a direct caregiver surpassed any such assistance given by the far-better-known Nightingale.This unsung heroine, Mary Seacole (nee Grant), was born in Kingston, Jamaica, probably in 1805, of mixed ethnic background.2 She belonged to a class that was legally termed mulatto. Her father was an army officer from Scotland who had been stationed on the island. Her mother was a free Black woman who ran a respectable seafront boarding house patronized by British army and navy officers and their families. In the early nineteenth century, Mary’s mother’s expertise in “doctoring” was well known in Kingston. This fit well with the custom of the time for military personnel to seek treatment for diseases and wounds from providers outside the army or navy establishment; officers often recuperated at reputable hotels. Mrs. Grant practiced the “Creole medical art,” a form of healing based on African herbal medicine and midwifery.3 Young Mary’s apprenticeship included this local traditional medicine, and she also observed British physicians who came to treat the officers staying at her mother’s boarding house.The social mores of the time precluded reputable women from venturing outside the domestic sphere.4 The motives of women who provided health care services outside the home were often considered suspect.5 But young Mary’s curiosity about the world around her led her to defy convention; in her autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, Mary Seacole describes herself as having a “disposition to roam.”6 Although it was considered improper for respectable women to travel abroad without the company of a gentleman, Mary Grant journeyed to England, throughout the Caribbean, and to Panama to visit her brother, always with her bag of remedies.7 Young Mary Grant’s medical apprenticeship served her well when fulfilling her desire for adventure and travel. During these trips she gained experience in treating cholera, yellow fever, various tropical diseases, and traumatic wounds. Her tours also allowed her to learn some simple surgery. Her statements regarding how she was treated by non-Blacks, and her reaction to ill-usage, testifies to her personal integrity and commitment to remain in charge of her own circumstances.In the 1830s, she married the godson of Viscount Horatio Nelson, Edwin Horacio Seacole, and attempted to lead a more conventional life back in Jamaica. However, within a few years Edwin died, as did Mary’s mother a short time later. Although grieved by these losses, Mary was now able to function independently. She rebuilt her mother’s hotel after it was destroyed in the great Kingston fire of 1843. She also demonstrated an astute business sense by increasing the profits at the hotel. But she became especially renowned in Kingston for her ability to treat the sick. When a yellow fever epidemic broke out in 1853, she was officially summoned by the authorities to take charge of the nursing arrangements at the military encampment.8 This experience would help Seacole in her decision a year later to offer her services to the British military after war had broken out in the Crimean Peninsula.Although the British Army Medical Department policy for health care had been criticized as early as 1810, there had been no progress in either increasing the numbers of military medical personnel or in their training by the time the British entered the Crimean War in March of 1854.9 No major campaign had been fought by the British since Waterloo, nearly forty years earlier, and military officers had little idea what medical disasters might accompany the declaration of war against Russia. A series of circumstances made matters worse for the British participants in the Crimean War. The army and navy had been considerably reduced to help balance the books after the great expense of the Napoleonic Wars. Thus, they were not well-prepared for the conditions they found awaiting them in the Black Sea region. Ill-equipped and lacking support services, twenty-seven thousand troops landed at Sebastopol. Within a month, eight thousand of these men had fallen victim to either cholera or malaria.10 Inexperienced personnel and the supply shortage were complicated by the limitations of contemporary medicine. As one wounded soldier explained their treatment:Of the twenty-one thousand troops who died during the war, only three thousand succumbed to injuries directly received in battle.12 The remainder fell to diseases such as dysentery, brought on by various inadequate health measures.The reality of the human wastage in the Crimea shocked the British public in 1854 no less than it shocks modern readers today. Advances in underwater cable allowed quick reporting of these conditions by telegraphy. The Times of London printed articles written by war correspondents William Russell and Thomas Chenery that explicitly detailed both the lack of military preparation and the waste of supplies and medical personnel.13 Chenery wrote with heart-wrenching pathos:Public support was needed to impel the British government to rectify the situation. Photographs proved to be one solution. Improvements in photography made the Crimean conflict an ideal experiment in photojournalism and aided the correspondents in their task of placing the facts before the public. It was the first war so covered. No means existed, however, to reproduce the pictures in newspapers. Russell’s and Roger Fenton’s photographic negatives were therefore shipped to London, where they were reproduced for public display on poster boards outside news shops to inform people of the circumstances and to entice them to purchase newspapers.When the public read of these circumstances and saw the prints of the scenes of battle, they were shocked and outraged that “their” boys were being so wrongly treated by those in charge, and they were particularly angered by the fact that the problem was caused by ineptitude and Bumbledom. So great was the outcry that the government had to take immediate action. Even though no formal nurses’ training yet existed—nurses learned their craft through personal experience or apprenticeship—the demand rose for female nurses to aid the British army in a manner similar to what the French already had in operation.15 A public fund was instituted by the Times to raise money for nursing personnel. From her residence in London, Florence Nightingale saw her chance. Contacting Elizabeth Herbert, a family friend and the wife of the secretary of state at war, Nightingale proposed that she oversee such an expedition. Her efforts resulted in her appointment as the superintendent of the Female Nursing Establishment of the General Hospitals in Turkey.16 While Nightingale and her nursing contingent journeyed to the East, the Herberts set up the Nurses’ Enlistment Centre at their home in London. Unfortunately, few women who were deemed suitable applied. This is hardly surprising, since the women on the center’s selection committee hoped only to attract “lady volunteers” to nurse in the Crimea. These affluent ladies would have had private resources, and the pitiful wages that the committee offered would not have influenced them. But contemporary mores and distaste for hard labor disinclined well-to-do women from applying as nurses to travel overseas, even for a good cause. Many other women, however, financially desperate through abandonment or widowhood, sought employment as nurses. Some of these women were experienced; others were considered undesirable. Despite the disadvantages, some capable women did volunteer, among them Mary Seacole.On a business venture, Mary Seacole traveled the two thousand miles to London from her home in Jamaica several months after the war broke out. Her work with the Kingston yellow fever outbreak in 1853 and her familiarity with the structure of the British military undoubtedly gave her the idea of volunteering her services when she learned of the details of the Crimean War. Upon hearing further descriptions of the Crimean disaster, she determined to put to use her excellent skills as a “doctress.” Having grown up in close association with the military and identifying with all that was British,17 Seacole knew she could be of great use to the British forces in their battle with the Russians. Her good reputation among the British military establishment in Jamaica led her to believe that her offer of help would not be refused. She was, however, told that there was no need of her expertise, not only by the Nurses’ Enlistment Centre, but by the various government departments to which she also applied.Undaunted, but weary of rebuff, Seacole borrowed money from a distant relative who was already enroute to the Crimea. She then purchased appropriate supplies and traveled the three thousand miles to Balaklava as a sutler, where she also set up a rest home in which to nurse the recuperating soldiers. She called her store “The British Hotel” and situated it on a hill two miles from Balaklava. The canteen of Seacole’s British Hotel served wholesome food, while the main room provided officers with reminders of a London club. Within a short time, Seacole’s culinary reputation equaled that of her medical ability. She even gained the admiration of Alexis Soyer, the world-famous French chef who was also with the troops in the Crimea.18Mary Seacole’s success in caring for the casualties was locally renowned. While Florence Nightingale functioned as an administrator at the distant Scutari hospital in Turkey, Seacole was often on the Crimean battlefields, personally ministering to the wounded, Allies and Russians alike. When she was at her British Hotel, she provided food, drink, and a touch of home for the soldiers. As army surgeon Douglas Reid recalled,William Russell wrote that she performed the “last offices for some of the noblest of our slain” and that every morning “rough navies” came to her for cures of their “diarrhoea, dysentery, and similar camp maladies.”20 Multiple testimonials from officers, enlisted men, civilians, and doctors speak both to her genuine concern for her charges as well as her ability to comfort and cure. Even Florence Nightingale, as recorded by Alexis Soyer, said that Seacole had “done a good deal for the poor soldiers.”21When the war ended in March of 1856, the French and British governments quickly withdrew their troops. Mary Seacole was left with an abundance of food and equipment for which there was no market. She returned, penniless, to England. Shortly afterward, she tried to run another sutler store in the military town of Aldershot, but was unsuccessful in her attempt. By the end of the year, she appeared before the London bankruptcy court.22 Upon hearing of her reduced circumstances, the Times published letters from supporters who wished to start a fund to compensate her for her Crimean losses.23 A considerable sum was raised, for by early 1857 she was declared free of debt. With this accomplished, she set about earning a living. Seizing on her popularity, she began to write her autobiography, as many did in the postwar years. In 1857, the Illustrated London News recommended her book and announced that a Grand Military Festival would be held for Seacole’s benefit in July. Nearly one thousand artists and patrons were assembled to appear at the four-day benefit. Thousands were said to be in the audience at the Royal Surrey Gardens each night.24 Despite the vast crowds, Seacole received only a few hundred pounds from the occasion. Due to previous financial difficulties, the Royal Surrey Gardens Company unexpectedly went bankrupt immediately after the Seacole Festival, and the profits that should have gone to Seacole went to pay off the company’s debtor.25 She eventually received additional money from the company, but not the sum that had been expected by the benefit organizers.Seacole’s latter years, however, were free from poverty largely through the generosity of benefactors, including the royal family. She made London her home, yet traveled several times back to visit Jamaica. In both places she was repeatedly recognized and celebrated, particularly by the men for whom she had cared during the Crimean conflict. A visitor recalled that one day in Jamaica, in the late 1860s, when Seacole was at the home of the superintendent of the Royal Mail Company,Her work in the Crimea was not the only explanation for public interest in Seacole. In Britain, she often frequented the homes of the upper class in London. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, she acted as masseuse to the Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra, and apparently visited Marlborough House with some frequency.27Few details are left to us regarding Seacole’s last years. It is known that she died in May of 1881 of what is listed on her death certificate as “apoplexy.” She had accumulated what would today be tens of thousands of dollars, all of which she bequeathed to charities, relatives, and to those who had helped her out of her earlier financial straits.28Mary Seacole’s place in the history of medicine has long been overlooked. Although thousands of survivors of the Crimea sang her praises, her fame as a caregiver was overshadowed by Florence Nightingale’s reputation. While it is true that the patriarchal British military establishment wished to avoid the use of female caregivers during the Crimean War, the fact remains that women were eventually put into service. Yet Mary Seacole’s offer of help was rejected in all official quarters. The reasons for this are complex, but at least four British prejudices kept Seacole from achieving her proper place in history.First, Mary Seacole was not English. During the century when “the sun never set” on the empire, people of varied cultures and ethnicity fell under the control of Britain. But this did not make them “English,” but merely subjects of the “Anglo-Saxon race.” Prejudice in England toward who was is it even today. the considered people of as with and with the Mary Seacole would have been as not in England, and would therefore have been considered in some Seacole was female in a patriarchal The for “respectable” women in the nineteenth century was to remain within the domestic to from this was and was with and Seacole went against the she adventure and sought out to lead an While it was true that the public of Seacole’s Crimean as she was considered of an camp were in military and social and Seacole’s could only have made people with whom she came in including the ladies of the Nurses’ Enlistment Centre, at her for to the Crimea on her own Mary Seacole’s was not respectable in the of the British class Seacole’s services were rejected by the War the the Medical and the Nurses’ Enlistment As Seacole herself the it that prejudices against had some those ladies from aid a than In it would that was one in her Although Seacole was often a among British officers and in upper-class after the war, it that in to this of she had to herself through the of as a she would never have been considered by the as a true or of to one of them. of mixed as well as being a made Seacole in the of the well-to-do of While it is true that and had been in London social during the early nineteenth century as a to by the time of the Crimean War this was no the of British is out by the fact that in one thousand in the to in the Crimea. Despite the disasters of and their offer was as who was in the British class The of a class to but the did not make people in business or more to the Even with financial Mary Seacole would not have been able to in the as Florence Nightingale, for Nightingale had been born to this against Seacole was her of medicine. Although it was for women of the nineteenth century to care for the or it was for them to medicine. By to be a and therefore Seacole have her for Florence Nightingale was of with women whom she did not have Nightingale nursing an for one that would especially women of their time a and place in the time of the Crimean War, was to that the were and that were Nightingale or her have that they Seacole’s offer to her as a it would have the success of the nursing contingent in the Crimea of the found among military of medicine also have caused The of the time was This treatment from to and but not to herbal The contemporary were and proper were Seacole’s varied skills would have caused a in what was even had she been the of on those who could and supply in The Nurses’ Enlistment Centre have been that Seacole’s of would place them on and they this as another for not her for in the Nightingale was also of women in her Although there was a of and nurses in the Crimean the women Nightingale had personally had all been from the of of Nightingale would have had no of Mary Seacole’s true for to in the Crimea and therefore against Seacole’s it is that only Florence Nightingale’s is when there were other women who performed during the Crimean War. this came about through Nightingale’s concern with health care especially in the which her and the support she had from the in such The in England to the war had led to for in and health This campaign well into the While at her in Turkey, Nightingale helped the public demand for through the letters she back to England. than any other the public in the of the task to be out in and the was not merely to her family and but to the fact that in her she appeared to all the in the for A of at that time that allowed Nightingale to be in such an her time in the Crimea had been Nightingale was repeatedly on matters of health by hospital and by who to the Nightingale of on their or who association with her Upon from the Crimean War, Nightingale wrote on hospital and and military health care In her she a that the which led to further interest in Nightingale’s she was a her appeared often in and she was in social among people of the Nightingale The of the was a family and Nightingale did not to for assistance in her before the public. the of the was also a of Nightingale, and through to the saw to it that the Nightingale were at British in such as Herbert, and the of made it to be by the Nightingale her for years to Seacole, on the other had during the Crimean War on a local Although in a of articles in the postwar years, she to lead a life out of the and was eventually all but she was of her work in the in all Mary Seacole’s fame was not in the that Nightingale’s has been of a of British and Seacole’s lack of desire to her of Florence Nightingale, on the other not only had the proper and official during the Crimean War, she also of these or would have influenced the British class of Mary be however, that the of the Victorian did not in this only Mary Seacole been by the Nurses’ Enlistment Centre for work in the Crimean War, she would not have been allowed to function in her role of Seacole, with the others who under Nightingale’s would have been only to to the and wounded and under military Seacole’s and would not long have to these and she undoubtedly would have eventually gone her own of the military personnel in the Crimean conflict was the task that Nightingale and Seacole. broke out of the set by Victorian yet woman considered herself what today would a set out to what she was her in Unfortunately, of Victorian and kept these women from each had they been in It was the and of the century, as well as personal that Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale to and even kept them from these as the support of the of Department of and of