This is Mary Seacole.
She lived an exciting life, travelling to many different countries and nursing wounded soldiers.
She wanted to travel to the Crimean War to help British troops but the Government refused.
Mary funded her travel to Crimea herself and built a hotel there.
Watch: The life of Mary Seacole
War stories usually remember men fighting battles but there are also brave women in wars like Mary Seacole.
Mary Seacole lived more than 150 years ago and had an adventurous life travelling across many lands to run businesses and help people in need.
Mary was born in Kingston, Jamaica.
Her dad was a Scottish soldier and her mum was Jamaican, so Mary was mixed race.
Mary's mum ran a hotel where wounded soldiers sometimes stayed. She taught Mary how to use plants to help care for them.
At that time a disease called cholera spread across Kingston. Mary helped those who were sick. Cholera was a terrible disease.
When Britain sent soldiers to war in Crimea, disease was more dangerous than the enemy. Thousands of soldiers died from it.
Because Mary knew how to treat cholera she wanted to go to Crimea as a nurse, but she wasn't chosen.
Mary went anyway, using her own money to pay for her journey.
When she reached Crimea, she set up a hotel right on the battlefront.
She sold hot meals and looked after wounded and sick soldiers.
But helping the soldiers cost so much money that when the war ended Mary was very poor.
To pay her debts, she wrote a book called ‘The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands’.
After she died, people forgot Mary Seacole, but we remember her today as a woman of mixed race who lived an exciting and unusual life.
She owned a business, travelled to many places and went to a war zone, bravely helping others.
What did Mary Seacole do?
- Mary Seacole was British-Jamaican, born in 1805.
- Her mother was a free Jamaican, her father a soldier in the British Army.
- Mary grew up in her mother’s hotel in Jamaica.
- Mary had a lot of experience caring for sick British soldiers because so many of them were based in the West Indies.
- One of the worst diseases in the Caribbean was cholera, which killed thousands of people.
- She used her medical knowledge and looked after the wounded from the battlefield.
Did you know?
- Mary paid for everything out of her own money and returned to England penniless.
- She wrote the story of her life, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands.
- After her death in 1881 she was largely forgotten. Her grave was undiscovered until 1973. Now, Mary and everything she did to care for soldiers, is much better known and appreciated.
Activity 1 – Sort the events of Mary Seacole's life
Activity 2: Mary Seacole Quiz
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