Mary Seacole

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to Homeschool History. I'm Greg Jenner, the historian behind TV's Horrible Histories. and the host of the BBC Radio 4 podcast, You're Dead to Me. I'm here to deliver a snappy history lesson to entertain and educate the whole family. Who says that homeschooling can't be fun?

And today we are going back to the 19th century to meet an extraordinary woman who travelled the world, all whilst helping the sick and injured. It's the marvellous Mary Seacole. Mary was born Mary Grant in 1805 on the Caribbean island of Jamaica, which at the time was a British colony. It would have been jam-packed with soldiers and sailors.

Mary's dad was a Scottish army officer called James Grant. Sadly, we don't know Mary's mum's name, but we know that she was a mixed-race Jamaican woman who owned a hotel in Kingston called Blundell Hall. Mary also had a sister, Louisa, and a half-brother, Edward. Blundell Hall was considered one of the best hotels in Jamaica's capital, Kingston. Mary was fascinated by healing. Her mum was known as a doctress.

meaning she practiced traditional African and Jamaican herbal medicine. And when she was a little girl, Mary practiced her healing skills on her dolls. She said there was no disease in Kingston that her poor dollies didn't catch at some point. All better now. But it wasn't all make-believe. Some of the British officers staying in Mary's mum's hotel caught nasty diseases, such as yellow fever, so Mary would have seen some very poorly people.

And growing up, Mary was also supported by a wealthy woman who was a bit like a grandmother to her. She gave Mary an education, while Mary's mum showed her how to run a hotel business. Mary visited London twice as a teenager and in those days the journey from Jamaica to Britain took at least six weeks by boat. Bad luck if you got easily seasick. And that wasn't the only thing that Mary had to worry about.

She was a young, mixed-race woman and she later wrote that her Jamaican friends got bullied in London for the colour of their skin. Horrible. The second time Mary went to London, she travelled alone as a businesswoman. Well, okay, business not quite woman? Business teenager? Yeah, probably something like that. Anyway, she was selling Caribbean pickles and preserves.

Mary then returned to Jamaica to work at Blundell Hall. When she was 31, she married a white English merchant called Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole. Great name. This was quite unusual at the time, as mixed-race marriages were not common in Jamaica. Mary and her new hubby opened a shop. But sadly, the business did not go well. So back they went to Blundell Hall. And this was when things went really bad for Mary.

In 1843, Blundell Hall burned down. And the year after, both Mary's husband and mother tragically died. Poor Mary had to pick herself back up and rebuild Blundell Hall. which she imaginatively renamed New Blundle Hall. Yeah, fair enough. After Edwin died, Mary got plenty of blokes asking to marry her, but she turned them all down.

In 1850, there was an outbreak of a terrible disease called cholera. Once that was over, Mary was in her mid-40s and she decided to go travelling again. But not to London. No, she headed to Panama in Central America. She went there to help her half-brother Edward with his new hotel. But when Mary arrived, the hotel was a total shambles.

Mary and her maid had to sleep under the dining room table, and Edward and the other staff had to sleep on top of it. Come on people, it's a table, not a bunk bed. One night a guest suddenly dropped down dead. Mary examined the body and she soon discovered it was the dreaded cholera again. Mary bravely stepped up to help people as the disease spread.

Not least because the only other medically trained person in town was described by Mary as a timid little dentist. Rich people paid Mary for her herbal remedies, but she treated poor people for free. Nice one, Mary.

Without modern medicine, some people died and Mary didn't always know how best to treat people with cholera, but she did her best and she probably saved some lives. Indeed, people really appreciated what she'd done for them, although some of them had a slightly funny way of showing it. Mary wrote that one American guy said she was great but it was a pity she wasn't white-skinned or American so that more people paid respect to her. Rude. Mary responded by saying she was proud of her darker skin.

And if all Americans were as rude as he was, then she wasn't missing out on much, was she? You tell him, Mary. While Mary was trying to save her patients, she caught cholera. Luckily, she recovered. and she felt that the experience helped her better understand how to care for the patients. When the cholera crisis was over, Mary opened her own restaurant in Panama called the British Hotel. Fancy.

It even had its own barbershop attached. So, did Mary now settle in Panama? Of course not. Have you not been listening? This is Mary Seacole. She's always looking for the next adventure. So, off she sailed for the Colombian island of Gorgona. There she went to set up a hotel for women, but that didn't go very well, so she went back to Jamaica. But she sadly had to change boats because there were some racist women who were very mean to her.

And when she finally did arrive back in Jamaica, there was another disease outbreak, this time yellow fever. So once again, Mary tried to help out and she set up a little nursing station at the nearby military base. And then, yep, off she went again on her travel. This time, she went to New Granada. It was a gold mine. And she was working this time as a cook to help out a chap called Thomas Day. Now, he was someone who knew her late husband, Edwin.

and also she was there to see if she could find any gold for herself she didn't find any gold but she did start hearing about a new war breaking out in crimea where some of the soldiers that she knew from back in jamaica would soon be sent

Mary wanted to help them, but she didn't know how, so instead she boarded a ship to London to go and raise funds for the gold mining business. But when she arrived after many weeks at sea, she heard that Florence Nightingale had already set out with a team of nurses to go and care for the soldiers. And Mary now thought, you know what, I don't want to be involved in gold mining. I want to go and help too.

Mary's book said she tried to join the next wave of nurses going out by turning up to the war office and knocking on all the doors. But she said that nobody took her seriously. Maybe because she was a Jamaican woman of colour. But Unstoppable Mary Seacole had a plan. She partnered up again with Thomas Day, remember him from back at the gold mine, and they decided to set up a new business in Crimea, in the middle of a war zone. Goodness me.

Yep, off she went again. The Crimea Peninsula is a chunk of land north of Turkey, on the coast of the Black Sea. It took two weeks to sail there from London, and when Mary arrived, she befriended a local Turkish officer. who helped her set up the British Hotel Mark II. Yeah, if you've got a good name, why not use it again? Anyway, the British Hotel was where she ran a restaurant for British officers and a canteen for the lower-class ordinary soldiers.

In return for his help, Mary taught the Turkish officer to speak English. Well, I mean, I say she taught him. She tried. By the end of it, all he could say was, gentlemen, good morning. And also, more champagne. I mean, they weren't ideal phrases for a war zone, but you know, nice over brunch, I suppose. Now, you might assume that the British Hotel was a five-star establishment.

but Mary literally made it out of rubbish. Salvaged driftwood, packing cases, old doors, iron sheets, anything she could find, really. The hotel, however, was a success, and Mary was a real hit with the British soldiers and officers. They even called her Mother Seacole, or sometimes Auntie. A famous journalist from the Times newspaper, William Russell, went out to the Crimea and he met Mary and described her as a warm and successful physician who has earned many a poor fellow's blessing.

Her main job, of course, was selling food, supplies and drinks to her customers. She was a businesswoman, but she really cared about the men and she often helped the injured onto the hospital ships or nursed soldiers with dodgy tummies and nasty fevers. And she even bandaged men on the battlefield once or twice. You can see why the men called her Mother Seacole. In 1856, after two horrible years of fighting, the Crimean War ended. Britain, France and Turkey had defeated the Russians.

This was great news for the Brits, but it left poor Mary in a bit of a pickle. And not a delicious pickle like her Caribbean preserves. No, she had spent all her money on buying expensive supplies. But now her customers were leaving and there was nobody to buy anything. She couldn't make her money back. It took her months to get back to London. But when she arrived, the British press had not forgotten about her and they set up a public fundraiser to help her get back on her feet.

And a year later, Mary published her famous book, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, which sold very well and turned her into a celebrity. There was a big party held for her and she also posed for a famous painting where Mary is wearing some unofficial medals that she seems to have given herself. Bit cheeky Mary. She then spent a few years in Jamaica, but...

Ran out of cash, so returned to London. Again. And then she spent the last few years of her life mixing with fancy people and even royalty who helped her out financially. Queen Victoria was a big fan. Mary Seacole died aged 75 in 1881. She was respected, comfortably well off and famous. Her fame faded over the years and people forgot about her, but in 1991...

More than 100 years after her death, she was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit, and she is now remembered as a kind-hearted healer who cared about others as well as being a canny businesswoman. And of course, she'd had an unstoppable thirst for adventure.

What a life she'd lived. And that's it for Mary Seacole. So now it's time for the quiz. We have five questions. Are you ready? Here we go. Question one. In which part of the British Empire was Mary Seacole born? Question 2. As a child, Mary practiced her healing remedies on which toys? Question 3. When treating people in Panama, what disease did Mary catch? Question 4. During the Crimean War, British troops loved Mary Seacole, but what did they nickname her?

And question five, Mary opened businesses in Panama and Crimea with the same name. But what was that name? OK, let's do the answers. The answer to question one, Mary was born on the island of Jamaica. The answer to question two, Mary practiced healing on her childhood dolls. The answer to question three, Mary caught cholera in Panama.

The answer to question four, the British troops called Mary Mother Seacole. And the answer to question five, her businesses in Crimea and Panama were both called the British Hotel. How did you do? If you didn't get all five, that's okay. Why not listen to a different episode on BBC Sounds? Hopefully you're now a Mary Seacole mega-swat. I'm afraid that's it for Series 2 of Homeschool History. Thank you so much for listening. Take care and goodbye.

Homeschool History was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. The research assistant was Hannah McKenzie. The script was by Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch, Emma Naguse and me. The producer was Abby Patterson and the historical advisor was Professor Gretchen Gazina. Climate change is real, it's happening, but it's not the end of the world.

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