Mary Seacole

About

Remembered for her 1857 memoir Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, this Jamaican-born writer and nurse assisted soldiers during the Crimean War and fought for racial tolerance by openly celebrating her multi-ethnic heritage. After her death, she was temporarily forgotten about by history before she began to gain recognition for her accomplishments. 

Before Fame

She first traveled from her native Jamaica in the early 1820s, living in England for a year and doing her best to combat the racial prejudice she encountered there.

Trivia

During the Crimean War, she traveled overseas and established a medical and rest facility in Crimea (modern-day Ukraine) known as the British Hotel. She was portrayed in the hit TV series Doctor Who in 2021.

Family Life

The child of a Scottish military man and a Jamaican medicine woman, she was born Mary Jane Grant and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. In the 1830s, she married Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole.

Associated With

She and Florence Nightingale both nursed soldiers wounded in the Crimean War.