Mary Seacole

CL1 · Sep 26, 2011

thought this might be of interest

Buried Kensal Green Catholic Cemetery London
Mary Seacole - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tonym · Sep 26, 2011

A gallant lady overshadowed by Florence Nightingale

Tony

Smudger Jnr · Sep 26, 2011

I remember reading about this extraordinary lady many years ago and as Tony quite rightly pointed out, this Heroin always lived in the shadow of Florence Nightingale.

Well done Clive for bringing it back to peoples attention once more.

Regards
Tom

geoff501 · Dec 22, 2011

Just noticed this link on Twitter

Christmas in the Crimea ~ a guest blog post by Helen Rappaport - dovegreyreader scribbles

Sue Light · Dec 22, 2011

Her memoirs 'The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands' can be downloaded free here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23031

It's written in a very 'modern' style that has appeal for readers today, and says a great deal about military life both in the West Indies in the first half of the 19th century, and during the Crimean War.

Sue

CL1 · Oct 17, 2018

Mary Seacole statue,St Thomas Hospital London
Mary Seacole - Wikipedia

StrangerHereMyself · Oct 18, 2018

Myth?
‘The real story is quite different—it’s a perfectly decent story; but we shouldn’t be giving her credit for doing Nightingale’s work in founding nursing and in providing quality care for ordinary soldiers.’
Professor Lynn McDonald (not to be confused with WW1 historian Lyn MacDonald), author of Mary Seacole: The Making of the Myth (2014).
“Mary Seacole: The Making of the Myth.” Youtube, 19 May 2014. One of seven short videos available here.

Dedicated website: Mary Seacole Information

McDonald, Lynn. “Would the Real Mary Seacole Please Stand Up and be Recognized?” The War Correspondent, Vol.30, No.2, Jul 2012:

Seacole’s contributions certainly deserve recognition, and a bronze statue is a fine tribute. But why St Thomas’ Hospital, home of the original Nightingale School, and the base of Nightingale’s decades long work to establish the modern profession of nursing? Seacole is not known ever to have set foot in the hospital, even as a patient. She did not nurse there, or in any hospital in Britain.
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McDonald, Lynn. “Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole: Nursing’s Bitter Rivalry.” History Today, Vol.62, No.9, Sep 2012. (Subscriber only):

All this shows Seacole to have been spunky, generous and worthy of praise. But it does not demonstrate that she worked as a nurse or that her actions saved thousands of lives. … In the Crimea, Seacole ran a business, as she had throughout her life. Like her Jamaican mother, she owned and operated a boarding house in Kingston, mainly for army and navy officers and their wives. Neither ran an invalid hospital nor nursing station, as is often stated.
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McDonald, Lynn. “Lessons in lies: How the BBC, school text books and even exam boards have twisted history to smear Florence Nightingale and make a saint of this woman.” Daily Mail, 1 Aug 2014:

The less heroic reality is that she went to Crimea in the spring of 1855 to set up a provisions store that sold luxury items (such as tinned lobster) to officers, and a restaurant and bar where they could dine and drink champagne. It was hardly fare for rank and file soldiers. Rather than ministering to the sick and wounded, Seacole’s main work by day was food preparation.
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McDonald, L. (2016), “Mary Seacole and claims of evidence‐based practice and global influence.” Nurs Open, 3: 5–18. doi:10.1002/nop2.32:

That she was a remarkable person who deserves honouring is not in question, but it is questionable that her accomplishments match those of Florence Nightingale (1820–1910). Both of these women became known during the Crimean War (1854–1856), but Seacole’s renown was mainly for her business in the Crimea, whose customers were officers.
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Bomber Harris took time to devote two pages of his 1947 memoir Bomber Offensive to decrying the British habit of extolling others at the expense of our own achievements:

I am to all intents and purposes a colonial myself, so I feel myself at liberty to say something about this. I am always astounded by the idiotic behaviour of the British islanders in crying down their own efforts and giving all the credit to others. … I regard the habitual reluctance of the British to claim their own rights and seek credit for their own good points as a manifestation not so much of diffidence but as of stupidity.

Our newspapers were always full of the wonderful fighting qualities of Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, South Africans, Rhodesians, Gurkhas, and what have you—anybody except the British. It has, in fact, become a parrot cry to praise our admittedly magnificent fighting men from the colonies and dominions at the expense of the British Isles. …

There is, in fact, nothing to choose between trained British and colonial or dominion troops except that the British, being in general better educated and more amenable to discipline, are apt to be quicker in the uptake during the complicated training which has to be given before troops can handle modern machines of war.

I have had under my command tens of thousands of fighting men from every part of the Empire and from every part of the British Isles, and I say without hesitation that the finest fighting aircrews of the whole lot were beyond doubt the British crews; when I say this, it is in no way to belittle the magnificent performance of crews from other parts of the Empire. The fact is that an ordinary mixed British crew from all parts of the British Isles is as brave as any crew from any part of the world, and is much better disciplined, and certainly better educated than the average colonial and dominion crew.
…
This diffidence, or as I call it stupidity, of the British, still continues and is really a serious menace to them. When so many people are told that the British are inferior as fighting men to everyone, from a New Zealander to a Gurkha, they are apt to believe it, coming as it does, over and over again, more or less straight from the horse’s mouth. History shows that the British are as good fighters as any and better than most.
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Harris, Sir Arthur. Bomber Offensive. 1947. Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2005. 63–5.

StrangerHereMyself · Oct 19, 2018

Helen Rappaport, authoress of No Place for Ladies: The untold story of women in the Crimean War (2007) and other books, wrote:

A degree of wishful thinking about Mary’s true role in the Crimea has, since her rediscovery in the 1980s, resulted in an exaggeration of what she actually did out there. Her major occupation was running her rather grandly named ‘British Hotel’. It was not a hotel but an improvised general store cum doctor’s surgery, cum officer’s canteen and club—where she charged those who could afford it high prices for her hot dinners and plum puddings, in order to fund her care of the sick and wounded who had no money to pay her with her own naturopathic medicines, the recipes for which she had learned at her mother’s knee in Kingston as a child.

Contrary to some of the persisting mythology, Mary Seacole was not some kind of Victorian battlefield paramedic; she arrived in the Crimea after all the major battles were over. She never set up or ran her own hospital—the War Commissariat would never have allowed it, but she did run an informal daily clinic where those needing medical attention could go—be it for a dose of jollop for dysentery, to have a wound stitched or their frostbite treated—and where they would always find kindness, sympathy and the warm hearted welcome of a woman who offered a little piece of England in the midst of war. Such was the popularity of Mrs Seacole’s establishment and the tales of her kindnesses toward the sick and wounded that her name became legendary across the Crimea during 1855–6.
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(“Mary Seacole: Guest post by Helen Rappaport,” The Virtual Victorian, 14 May 2013, virtualvictorian.blogspot.com/2013/05/mary-seacole-guest-post-by-helen.html)

A fascinating and eminently respectable person, it is good that people read about her life—but she should not be lionised to the extent of eclipsing Florence Nightingale; and it is questionable whether she merits a statue at all, let alone one taller than Florence’s.

Mary Seacole’s Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands is available here on Gutenberg.

CL1 · Oct 20, 2018

Its a headstone and memorial about Mary Seacole this is what many of my posts are about.
I photograph them and put in a wiki link which gives a basic precise of the individual.

The below is possibly why she has a statue.

but she did run an informal daily clinic where those needing medical attention could go—be it for a dose of jollop for dysentery, to have a wound stitched or their frostbite treated—and where they would always find kindness, sympathy and the warm hearted welcome of a woman who offered a little piece of England in the midst of war. Such was the popularity of Mrs Seacole’s establishment and the tales of her kindnesses toward the sick and wounded that her name became legendary across the Crimea during 1855–6.

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Mary Seacole

CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

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Tonym WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

geoff501 Achtung Feind hört mit

Sue Light Member

CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

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CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

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Mary Seacole

CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

Attached Files:

Mary Seacole.JPG

Tonym WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

geoff501 Achtung Feind hört mit

Sue Light Member

CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

StrangerHereMyself Member

StrangerHereMyself Member

CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

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