Welcome to this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga where we journey through the history of nursing education using stories that connect the past to the present and then our future as we reimagine our teaching and learning. In this episode, we celebrate the November birthday of Mary Seacole, a British Jamaican nurse born on November 23, 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica.
Wholly influenced by her West African and Jamaican heritage and often referred to as Mother Seacole, she was skilled as a healer and doctor from Jamaica speaking and living out the traditions of the "Doctresses" as she called them. While the influence of her West African and Jamaican heritage was always prevalent, she was also a Scot and so known as the Scots-Jamaican healer. During her upbringing,
Jamaica was part of the British Empire. British soldiers were stationed on the island and it was written that a Scottish military officer had fallen in love with Mary's mother, who was a free woman running a boarding house in Kingston. Her mother was also a "doctress" who practiced traditional healing. As a young girl, Mary would follow her mom's footsteps and practice traditional healing on
her pets and her dolls. A local patroness was quite taken with Mary's intelligence as a girl and she promised to provide a good education for Mary. With the influence of British troops, Mary would travel to England with her patroness to sell West Indian spices. With the money that she earned, she was able to stay in England to further develop her traditional healing skills. Mary also traveled around the Caribbean serving as
a doctress. It was on her native island that she met and married Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole. They were only married for eight years before he died. Sadly, she also lost her mother shortly thereafter, and then lost her home to a fire that had engulfed the whole of Kingston, Jamaica. Mary, steadfast in her efforts to continue in her mother's tradition, rebuilt her home and brought in soldiers and their wives as paying guests.
Mary's reputation as a healer preceded her. With her skills as a doctress, she was called upon to assist the many victims of the cholera epidemic in Jamaica and throughout Panama. In 1857, an autobiography was published titled, "The Wonderful adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands." When yellow fever raged through Jamaica and other Caribbean islands, British military authorities called upon Mary to gather other Jamaican
nurses. With Mary's experiences addressing the care needs during cholera, she worked with these nurses to focus on cleanliness. Mary's success with these efforts made her especially valuable to assist the British during the Crimean War in 1854. She went to England and sought employment as a nurse, but was turned down. Matters of racial discrimination were prevalent and controversy exists today about her interaction with Florence Nightingale and her quest to assist
as a nurse during the Crimean War. Nightingale was firm that Mary could not join her staff as she had not been trained as a "Nightingale nurse." Despite this disappointment, she persevered. Mary set up her own establishment called Spring Hill - a hotel for soldiers and sightseers. She went directly to the front lines during the war to minister to the sick and wounded. Many soldiers knew her as Mother Seacole and sought her out at
the hotel instead of going to the hospital. She used herbal medicine, or herbal remedies as they were called back then, and was admired for her skills compassion and bravery in her nursing work. It is written that her very presence as a field hospital was immediately available to tend to the wounded and sick as a field hospital. She did not have the same issue with infection as was seen in many of the hospital facilities so her success rate was remarkable.
Mary's story is a familiar one even today. She braved the wretches of war and catastrophic disease to be on the front lines to minister to the sick and dying - often putting herself in harm's way both with war and with disease. So too do our modern day health care teams, fighting to daily save the lives of those suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Mary encountered and fought through racism most of her life - this impacted her ability
to provide extensive care. Mary never claimed to be a nurse, but she was a healer. In her autobiography, Mary is quoted as saying: Regardless of the racial controversies that existed, her success and record of healing should not be forgotten. In a two-part news publication of Scotland's The National, dated April 26 and May 3, 2020, columnist Hamish MacPherson recounts
Mary Seacole's life. MacPherson shares a quote from The Times of London journalist William Russell in 1857, who is known to have spread her fame to Britain writing: The statue of Mary Seacole stands in the grounds of Saint Thomas Hospital in Lambeth, London. Sculpted by Martin Jennings, the statue was erected in 2016.
It honors Mary Seacole, a British-Jamaican nurse who established a "British Hotel" during the Crimean war and who was posthumously voted first in a poll of "100 Great Black Britons." And so the saga continues...and may our saga continue as we bring to a close this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga. Thank you for joining us