The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (Penguin Classics)

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In fact, when she was a teenager, she took two trips to England, where she spent three years in total. Rawlinson, Kevin (7 February 2013). "Another Gove U-turn: Mary Seacole will remain on the Curriculum". The Independent. London. As a female, and a widow, I may be well excused giving the precise date of this important event,” she writes in her book, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. “But I do not mind confessing that the century and myself were both young together, and that we have grown side-by-side into age and consequence.”

Lynn McDonald, “Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole: Which is the Forgotten Hero of Health Care and Why.” Scottish Medical Journal 59,1 (1 February 2014):66-69; “Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole on Nursing and Health Care.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 69,11 (November 2013). It was scarcely surprising that the cholera should spread rapidly, for fear is its powerful auxiliary, and the Cruces people bowed down before the plague in slavish despair. The Americans and other foreigners in the place showed a brave front, but the natives, constitutionally cowardly, made not the feeblest show of resistance. Beyond filling the poor church, and making the priests bring out into the streets figures of tawdry dirty saints, supposed to possess some miraculous influence which they never exerted, before which they prostrated themselves, invoking their aid with passionate prayers and cries, they did nothing. Very likely the saints would have got the credit of helping them if they had helped themselves; but the poor cowards never stirred a finger to clean out their close, reeking huts, or rid the damp streets of the rotting accumulation of months. I think their chief reliance was on "the yellow woman from Jamaica with the cholera medicine." Nor was this surprising; for the Spanish doctor, who was sent for from Panama, became nervous and frightened at the horrors around him, and the people soon saw that he was not familiar with the terrible disease he was called upon to do battle with, and preferred trusting to one who was. a b Tim Taylor (10 January 2013). "The Mary Seacole debate: a teacher's view of the primary curriculum". The Guardian. London . Retrieved 14 January 2013.Mary’s mother ran a lodging house, called Blundell Hall, which was much respected by local people in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital city. But she was also a healer and taught Mary many of her skills using traditional Jamaican medicines. Most of it is about her role in the Crimea because she knew that that was what was going to catch public attention, and therefore that was what was going to make it sell. Se did talk about her early years in Kingston. She talked about the time that she spent travelling, not just to the Caribbean, but she went twice to England as well. She also wrote about the time she spent keeping a hotel in Panama. You have to pinch yourself sometimes when you’re gently relating the story of Mary’s life. But she did, indeed, keep a hotel in Panama on the Gold Rush route and spent a couple of years there. There was no canal at that time, so people had to cross the Isthmus of Panama if they wanted to get to the goldfields of California. But the book does concentrate on the Crimea because that was where the British readership’s interest was. Seacole travelled from Navy Bay in Panama to England, initially to deal with her investments in gold-mining businesses. She then attempted to join the second contingent of nurses to the Crimea. She applied to the War Office and other government offices, but arrangements for departure were already underway. In her memoir, she wrote that she brought "ample testimony" of her experience in nursing, but the only example officially cited was that of a former medical officer of the West Granada Gold-Mining Company. However, Seacole wrote that this was just one of the testimonials she had in her possession. [51] Seacole wrote in her autobiography, "Now, I am not for a single instant going to blame the authorities who would not listen to the offer of a motherly yellow woman to go to the Crimea and nurse her ‘sons’ there, suffering from cholera, diarrhœa, and a host of lesser ills. In my country, where people know our use, it would have been different; but here it was natural enough – although I had references, and other voices spoke for me – that they should laugh, good-naturedly enough, at my offer." [52] A two-dimensional sculpture of Seacole was erected in Paddington in 2013. [155] On 14 October 2016, Google celebrated her with a Google Doodle. [156] Controversy [ edit ] I long to join the British Army before Sebastopol – My Wanderings about London for that purpose – How I failed – Establishment of the Firm of "Day and Martin" – I Embark for Turkey

Mary decided something had to be done and so, with her loyal friend Thomas, she opened a “ British Hotel” near to the battlefields.The epidemic raged through the population. Seacole later expressed exasperation at their feeble resistance, claiming they "bowed down before the plague in slavish despair". [40] She performed an autopsy on an orphan child for whom she had cared, which gave her "decidedly useful" new knowledge. At the end of this epidemic she herself contracted cholera, forcing her to rest for several weeks. In her autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, she describes how the residents of Cruces responded: "When it became known that their "yellow doctress" had the cholera, I must do the people of Cruces the justice to say that they gave me plenty of sympathy, and would have shown their regard for me more actively, had there been any occasion." [44] seemed universally practised, and would very likely have been defended by its practitioners upon principle.

Mary Seacole lived more than 150 years ago and had an adventurous life travelling across many lands to run businesses and help people in need.Voyage to Constantinople – Malta – Gibraltar – Constantinople, and what I thought of it – Visit to Scutari Hospital – Miss Nightingale Struggles for Life – The Cholera in Jamaica – I leave Kingston for the Isthmus of Panama – Chagres, Navy Day, and Gatun – Life in Panama – Up the River Chagres to Gorgona and Cruces

Fluhr, Nicole. "'Their Calling Me 'Mother' Was Not, I Think, Altogether Unmeaning': Mary Seacole's Maternal Personae." Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 34, ser. 1, 2006, pp.95–113. 1, JSTOR 25058738 Discuss with the children what a nurse is and what the work of a nurse involves. Share with them that at the time of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole the role and skills of a nurse were still developing. After watching the video McCrum, Robert (10 April 2017). "The 100 best nonfiction books: No 62 – The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (1857)". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 April 2018. National Portrait Gallery". National Portrait Gallery (United Kingdom). 2006 . Retrieved 30 March 2008.This particular edition of her autobiography, edited by Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee, is really important. It was published in the 1980s, the first time that it had been printed since 1857, when the autobiography was launched. It’s the first time that Mary was recognized as someone really significant both in British and in Afro-Caribbean history. Mrs Seacole missed the first three major battles of the war, as she was busy in London attending to her gold investments—she had arrived from Panama where she had provided services for prospectors going overland to the California Gold Rush. She gave assistance at the battlefield on three later battles, going out to attend to the fallen after serving wine and sandwiches to spectators. Jane, before we get on to the books, I wonder if you could tell us very briefly who Mary Seacole was. Where and when was she born and how did she end up in Crimea?