Vintage portrait of Mary Seacole pioneering British-Jamiacan nurse, hero to many during the Crimean war.
The above picture depicts Mary seated in front of a wide valley, beside a tent, next to a camp stool and table full of medicine bottles. Mary is wearing a military looking outfit (thought to have been self-designed). This is the last picture of Mary, taken around 1873. The reason for its commission is unknown. Mary Seacole was born in Jamaica more than 200 years ago. This was during the period when many black people in the Caribbean were forced to work as slaves. Although Mary’s mother was black, her father James Grant was a white Scottish army officer and Mary was born a ‘free person’. She had a sister, Louisa, and a brother, Edward. The Crimean War lasted from October 1853 until February 1856. It was fought by a coalition including Britain, against the Russian Empire. Mary travelled to England and approached the British War Office, asking to be sent as an army nurse to the Crimea where she had heard there were poor medical facilities for wounded soldiers. She was refused. Undaunted, she funded her own trip to Crimea, now part of Ukraine, where she established the British Hotel with Thomas Day, a relative of her husband, Edwin. The hotel provided a place of respite for sick and recovering soldiers. At the time, Mary was as well-known in Britain as Florence Nightingale. Ms Nightingale’s famous military hospital was situated hundreds of miles from the frontline in Scutari (now called Üsküdar, just outside the Turkish city of Istanbul). But Mary’s hotel near Balaclava was much closer to the fighting. Mary was able to visit the battlefield, sometimes under fire, to nurse the wounded. Indeed, she nursed sick soldiers so kindly that they called her ‘Mother Seacole’. Read more at Mary Seacole Trust
Size: 4960px × 7015px
Photo credit: © photo-fox / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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