Mary Seacole

Born to a Scottish father and a Jamaican mother Mary Seacole learned the skills she was used for her nursing career from her mother who kept the boarding house for injured soldiers. Mary practiced the art of medicine on her doll, alongside her pets including dogs and cats as well as on herself and the occasional plant or two. Despite being biracial, Mary and her family her very few civil rights and these rights included the ability to vote, hold public office or enter the professions as at that time Jamaica was a colony of the British Empire. In 1854, Mary decided to travel to England where she wanted to join a group of nurses going to help injured soldiers in the Crimean War. Once again racism prevented Mary from being with all the other nurses despite having worked as a nurse in the hospital run by her mother, so she decided to set up her own hospital after making the long journey to the Crimean war. Although it was called the British Hotel, this building functioned as a hospital. It wasn't long after she started running the British Hotel was when she realized it wasn't just injuries that were killing the soldiers but also called and hunger. Resolution providing hot food and opening a shop selling fresh fruit and vegetables as well as providing warm clothing to the soldiers. Mary Seacole also visited Battlefield sometimes under and sometimes when those Battlefields were under fire to nurse the wounded which led to her being called mother Seacole. She may had been rejected by the British War Office for being black and not white like Florence Nightingale, but she proved that race shouldn't be a boundary to helping sick and wounded soldiers.