Biography of Mary Seacole, a pioneering nineteenth-century British-Jamaican nurse.
Mary Seacoleasquo;s remarkable life began in Jamaica, where she was born a free person, the daughter of a black mother and white Scottish army officer. Ron Ramdinydash;who, like Seacole, was born in the Caribbean and emigrated to the United Kingdom dash;tells the remarkable story of this woman, celebrated today as a pioneering nurse.
Refused permission to serve as an army nurse, Seacole took the remarkable step of funding her own journey to the Crimean battlefront, and there, in the face of sometimes harsh opposition, she established a hotel for wounded British soldiers. Unlike Florence Nightingaleudash;whose exploits saw her venerated as the Edquo;lady with the lampldquo; for generations afterward dash;Seacole cared for soldiers perilously close to the fighting. As Ramdin shows in this biography, Seacole squo;s time in Crimea, for which she is best-known, was the only pinnacle of a life of adventure and travel.
