The Statue of Mary Seacole in the Gardens of St. Thomas’ Hospital, Lambeth, London is the first in the UK to honour a named Black woman.

Created by sculptor Martin Jennings, the unveiling of the statue by Baroness Floella Benjamin OBE followed at 12-year campaign for funding by the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal.  Over half a million pounds was raised through small donations by schools, nurses, members of the public and army units, greatly emphasising how the appeal resonates with a broad spectrum of British society, a symbol of grassroots power.

The significance of the Mary Seacole Memorial runs deeper than simply adding another statue to London’s landscape; it represents a shift in who Britain chooses to remember and honour in its public spaces.

It stands to aid in the correction of her historical erasure.  Mary Seacole was born in Jamaica to a Black mother and a white father during a time where the slave trade was still prominent in the Caribbean.  Her mother ran Blundell Hall, a lodging house in Kingston Jamaica, but she was also a healer and taught Mary how to practice traditional Jamaican medicines.

Throughout her life, Mary Seacole nursed people using what her mother had taught her.  In the 1850s, she nursed victims of the Kingston cholera epidemic and in 1851 nursed more victims of cholera in Cruces, Panama.  She continued to treat victims of further epidemics.  Mary Seacole was invited by the medical authorities to supervise nursing services at Up-Park in Kingston, the British Army’s headquarters.  She reorganised New Blundell Hall, her mother’s former lodging house which was rebuilt after a fire, to function as a hospital.

Mary Seacole travelled to England and asked the British War Office to send her as an army nurse to the Crimea, where she had heard there were poor medical facilities for wounded solders fighting in the Crimean War (1853 – 1856).  The British War Office refused her request; however, Mary Seacole funded her trip to Crimea.  She established the British Hotel with Thomas Day, a relative of her husband.  The purpose of the hotel was to provide a place of respite for the sick and recovering soldiers.  Sometimes, Mary Seacole would visit the battlefield to nurse the sick and wounded soldiers,

The Times War Correspondent, Sir William H Russell, wrote in 1857: “I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead.”

This memorial disrupts the narrative of traditional monuments; most UK statues commemorate military leaders, politicians or royalty.  Seacole’s statue honours a woman, a Black woman, a nurse and a humanitarian – all factors which expand who deserve to be monumentalised.                                                                                                                                     

Image: Mary Seacole statue, St Thomas’ Hospital.

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Seacole_statue,_St_Thomas%27_Hospital,_front_view.jpg

Author: Owen Blacker

License: CC0 1.0