UK’s First Statue Honouring Black Woman Pays Tribute to Jamaican
On Thursday, June 30, the United Kingdom’s (UK) first statue believed to be in honour of a named black woman was unveiled at St Thomas’ Hospital in London.
The memorial statue honours Mary Seacole, a Jamaican nurse who cared for wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War from 1853 to 1856.
A 12-year campaign raised £500,000 for the erection of the structure.
Seacole was born in Kingston Jamaica in 1805. Her travels as a nurse saw her going to many places in the Caribbean, Central America and Europe to care for others.
In the 1850s, she travelled solo to the Crimean war, where she cared for British soldiers in the battlefield.
- Seacole acquired knowledge of herbal medicine in the Caribbean. When the Crimean War broke out, she applied to the War Office to assist but was refused.
- She travelled independently and set up her hotel and assisted battlefield wounded. She eventually became extremely popular among service personnel who raised money for her when she faced destitution after the war.
- After her death, she was forgotten for almost a century, but today is celebrated as a woman who successfully combatted racial prejudice.
- Her biography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857), is one of the earliest autobiographies of a mixed-race woman, although some aspects of its accuracy have been questioned.
See one of our previous posts on Mary Seacole HERE
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