Seacole, Mary (1805–1881)

Jamaican nurse. Her popularity during the Crimean War rivalled that of Florence Nightingale. She was rejected as a nurse by the British War Office, and by one of Florence Nightingale's assistants, which she suspected was due to race prejudice, but in 1855 opened a hotel and store serving British troops near Kadikoy (modern Kadikeui, Turkey). She was present at the Battle of Tchernaya and was the first woman to enter the town of Sevastopol when it fell.

She was born in Kingston, where her mother ran a boarding house for invalid officers. In 1853 the medical authorities in Jamaica asked her to provide nurses for British soldiers. At the end of the Crimean War in 1856 she returned to London bankrupt; her cause was taken up in The Times and Punch, and a four-day music festival raised money for her. In 1857 she published her autobiography Wonderful adventures of Mrs Seacole in many lands. She was awarded a Crimean medal.