To Sharon Ament, Director, Museum of London

Sharon Ament, director
Museum of London
150 London Wall
London EC2Y 5HN

Dear Ms Ament

We are writing with concern about your website and tour material on Mary Seacole, about whom an enormous amount of misinformation is in circulation. Especially since the Museum of London takes tours of school children, we urge that the errors be corrected.

Minor errors, or uncorroborated points, on your coverage of Seacole include the point that her mother was a “free black woman,” although Seacole never used the term “black” for herself or her family members-they were of mixed race; she called herself “Creole” (Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands 1). She described her father as a “soldier” (1) not an officer. She gave her mother’s occupation as “boarding house” keeper, who was also an “admirable doctress (2), never a nurse. There is no documentation that Seacole was employed by the royal family post-Crimea.

On the Crimean War the errors escalate. When war broke out in the Crimea-the first battle was on 20 September-Nightingale’s team of nurses did not exist, and Seacole was en route to England from Panama, to attend to her gold-mining stocks (74). Seacole never submitted an application to be a nurse (they are at the Public Archives, Kew). According to her memoir, she went around to various offices to apply in person-after Nightingale and her team had left (75-79). She may have been rejected for racism, but it is impossible to tell-she was also old for nursing, and lacked hospital experience.

Seacole then decided, with her business partner, to establish a hotel, and sent out printed cards to this effect (81). On consultation with chef Alexis Soyer, however, she decided to keep the business to food and drink, not hotel accommodation (see his Culinary Campaign 233). She never claimed to have run a “daily clinic,” but rather saw “patients,” all walk-ins, while running her kitchen (125). The food was for sale to officers, not ordinary soldiers, who clearly could not afford the lobster, fine wines, champagne, etc. Nor did soldiers buy boots or saddles, but officers did. The “cannon fire” statement is an exaggeration, and her helping “on the battlefield” occurred on exactly three occasions (156, 167, 169). Seacole sold herbal remedies, and gave some away to those who could not pay. However, she also added toxic non-herbals to her cholera remedies, such as lead acetate and mercury chloride (31). Her remedies for bowel diseases were unhappily similar to those used by doctors, and, like theirs, either ineffective or positively harmful.

Seacole was given no medals by any country, nor ever, in her Wonderful Adventures, claimed to have been awarded any. She did not wear medals for her picture on the cover. However, she started to wear them in London after the war, which was not then illegal. Since 1955, it has been a criminal offence in the Army Act to wear military medals not your own. This is a common myth bandied about, but is entirely false. (Only the military were awarded those medals-see John Horsley Mayo, Medals and Decorations of the British Army and Navy, vol. 2 on the Crimean War). The one medal Seacole was awarded, although posthumously, was the Jamaican Order of Merit, but you do not mention it!

Seacole and her partner had to declare bankruptcy (they had expanded the business, expecting the British Army to stay longer in the Crimea after hostilities were over than it did). Officers did the fund raising for her after the war, for officers were her main customers.

We note also that your website has almost nothing about Nightingale-a “carte de visite.” Yet her decades-long work, all based in London, brought in modern professional nursing, health care reforms and changed hospital design.

Yours sincerely

To Prof. Martin Hall, University of Salford

Professor Martin Hall, Vice-chancellor
University of Salford
The Crescent
Salford M5 4WT

December 10, 2012

Dear Vice-chancellor

Some of the information requested about the Mary Seacole Building was duly sent, thanks to Ian Johnston. No information was provided on the information given to those making the decision, or any background document provided. Still, enough was sent for me to be writing you, now with colleagues concerned with the issue, about the extent of misinformation.

I am sorry to tell you that the wording on the plaque in the Seacole Building is seriously wrong, from beginning to end. Numerous erroneous sources are now available, so that it would take considerable care to get the facts about Seacole right, or even close. My colleagues and I do not object to honouring Seacole for her own work, but to crediting her with work (and feats) that she did not do, often crediting her with the work that Florence Nightingale did. (You do not mention Nightingale by name on your plaque, but make a snide reference to the “Angel Band.” Nightingale’s mission, not Seacole’s, was to ordinary soldiers.)

Herewith your plaque, with its errors (see the numbered notes): Mary Seacole, born in Kingston, Jamaica, was an unlikely medical pioneer.¹ She had no private capital², no formal training³, and yet when she died in 1881 she was the most famous black woman of the Victorian age. She is acknowledged now as a gifted and influential multidisciplinary practitioner⁴ and true nursing hero⁵.

Mary was the daughter of a Scottish soldier father and African Caribbean mother. Her mother was a “doctress” or traditional healer who taught her willing daughter all she knew. Mary travelled widely and in Panama encountered and cared for cholera victims for the first time. Her expertise in herbal remedies⁶ and spiritual healing⁷ became tempered with a sound clinical approach.

In 1854 Mary rushed to Britain⁸ and volunteered to help in the Crimean War. She was nearly 50 years of age and a striking figure-unashamedly large, colourful and cheerful. Her exuberance embarrassed the War Office and they refused to see her⁹. Similarly she was turned down by the much-acclaimed “Angel Band” of more demure military nurses¹⁰. Undeterred, Mary funded her own journey to the battlefields of the Crimea¹¹. There she founded the British Hotel close to the battlefield of Balaclava¹² for sick and wounded soldiers of all rank(s)¹³. “Mother Seacole” quickly became an institution among her “sons” in the army, beloved and admired.

When the war ended in 1856, she returned to Britain destitute and in ill health. The press highlighted her plight and funds were raised through a grand military festival¹⁴. She was decorated for her work by Britain, France and Turkey¹⁵ and became something of a national celebrity. Her autobiography “Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands” was first published in 1857 and tells her remarkable life story with energy, warmth and humour. In it she provided an insight into the history of race politics¹⁶.

All her life she followed an instinct to help comfort and understand and the individual patient was always her prime concern¹⁷. When she died in London at the age of 76 she had become recognized as the first black woman in history to make her mark on British public life¹⁸.

In the light of this critique, we ask how you intend to amend the plaque? An academic institution cannot permit such material in a public setting without exposing itself to significant embarrassment. We would be happy to provide material for a more appropriate inscription, if that would be helpful.

Sincerely yours

Notes

[Numbers in brackets refer to pages in Alexis Soyer, Culinary Campaign 1857 (CC) and Mary Seacole’s “Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands” (WA)]

¹ Medical pioneer: what did she pioneer?

² No private capital: but she owned her late mother’s boarding house, “my house” (WA, pp 7, 59), a substantial building; when setting up her business in the Crimea she told Soyer that she had “embarked a large capital” in “her new speculation” (CC, p 233)

³ No formal training: there was no nursing training at the time for anyone, including Nightingale.

⁴ Influential multi-disciplinary practitioner: what disciplines? Whom did she influence?

⁵ True nursing hero: where and when did she nurse? How was she heroic?

⁶ Her expertise in herbal remedies: but she added toxic metals to her herbal cures, notably “sugar of lead” or lead acetate and mercury chloride (calomel) (WA, p 31).

⁷ Spiritual healing: not a subject she mentioned in her memoir, any source?

⁸ Rushed to Britain: however, in her memoir she said that she went to London to attend to her gold mining stocks, and only there, after Nightingale and her nurses had left, did she decide she wanted to go, too. This was after the major battles, and the sinking of a major supply ship on 14 November 1854, as she noted in her memoir, when she was still thinking about applying (WA, p 74).

⁹ Her exuberance embarrassed the War Office: how do you know that? Seacole’s memoir is the only source available on the matter, and it says nothing of the sort (WA, pp 77-79).

¹⁰ Turned down by the much acclaimed “Angel Band” of more demure military nurses: many of them were not demure at all, and were dismissed for intoxication; in any event they had all left for the war before Seacole decided she wanted to go, so could hardly have turned her down (WA, p 74).

¹¹ Funded her own journey: yes, with the proceeds of her previous business, and with the intention of making money with her investment, as she told Soyer (CC, p 233).

¹² Close to the battlefield of Balaclava: but the Battle of Balaclava took place on 25 October 1854, before Seacole had even decided she wanted to go to the war.

¹³ Sick and wounded soldiers of all ranks: Seacole’s memoir describes a hut providing meals, take-away, a bar and store for officers, only a “canteen” for soldiers (WA, p 114). She announced the intention of opening the “British Hotel,” but in fact it was never a hotel. Those who knew it called it “Mrs Seacole’s hut” or “Mrs Seacole’s store.” There were no beds for anyone, let alone sick or wounded; those who went there were well enough to be walk-ins.

¹⁴ Funds were raised through a grand military festival. The festival raised little money; the fund that supported Seacole in her old age was raised in 1867, by subscription.

¹⁵ She was decorated for her work by Britain, France and Turkey: a point often made, but not true, nor did Seacole ever claim to have won any decorations, although she wore medals when back in London.

¹⁶ She provided an insight into the history of race politics: but she never discussed the plight of blacks, slave or free, in Jamaica; she herself lived in many respects as a white Jamaican, employing blacks, e.g. two black servants in the Panama and the Crimea (WA, pp 12, 36, 39); she frequently used racist language for others, including “nigger” (WA, pp 20, 45, 48) and never referred to herself as a black or African.

¹⁷ The individual patient was always her prime concern: where did she state this?

¹⁸ The first black woman in history to make her mark on British public life: with the proviso that she did not identify as a black; she called herself variously “yellow” (WA, pp 27, 34, 78) and “a little brown” or “brunette” (WA, p 4) and “a few shades of deeper brown upon my skin” (WA, p 14), for her skin was not “as dark as any nigger’s” (WA, p 48).

Andrea Spyropoulos, president, Royal College of Nursing
Peter Carter, chief executive
20 Cavendish Sq
London W1G 0RN

November 5, 2012

Dear Ms Spyropoulos and Dr Carter

We are writing with concern over the RCN’s presentation of Mary Seacole as a pioneering nurse. We do not oppose honouring Seacole for her own merits, but rather, alas, the sizable misinformation campaign now associated with her. Nor do we oppose her being honoured with a statue, although we do most strenuously oppose its being erected at St Thomas’ Hospital with the designation “Pioneer Nurse,” a term clearly applicable to Nightingale, especially at her hospital–the home for more than a century of her nursing school, and a hospital whose design she influenced, in the cause of improved, safer hospital design–surely a matter for ongoing, not merely historical, concern.

We ask for the reasons for the remarks of RCN leaders, published in the Nursing Standard:

1. From, Sylvia Denton, RCN president in 2004, when she led the call for a monument to Seacole and stated: “Against all odds, she had an unshakeable belief in the power of nursing to make a difference. Mrs Seacole changed the face of modern nursing,” in Carol Davis, “Living Her Dream,” 18,32 (21 April 2004):12. What did she change? From what to what? We consider that Nightingale changed the face of modern nursing, and could go on for a very long time explaining how, but Seacole was a “doctress” or herbalist, and to our knowledge never was a nurse.

2. “RCN general secretary Peter Carter said: ‘There are three historical female figures in nursing who deserve respect, Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole and Edith Cavell. They are three different women and it saddens me that we cannot celebrate all three in equal measure,” in Petra Kendall-Raynor, “Choice of Nightingale’s ‘Shrine’ for Seacole Memorial Contested” 21,34 (2 May 2007):8. But what is equal about their contributions? Edith Cavell is celebrated for her bravery, not her nursing (which was unhappily cut short). What exactly did Mary Seacole do to establish the nursing profession, in the U.K., or anywhere? If she nursed at a hospital, which? Did she write a book on nursing? What? Mentored nurses? Name some. Sent out teams of nurses to start professional nursing in other cities and countries? Where? We append Did You Know? about Nightingale’s contributions for reference.

3. The RCN website on the Mary Seacole stamp issued by the Royal Mail, that Seacole was taught “traditional African herbal medicine and midwifery by her mother,” when her memoir never mentions African remedies or midwifery but merely calls her mother “an admirable doctress” (Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands 2), from whom she learned “a great deal of Creole medicinal art” (5). She is said to have “learned to treat cholera, yellow fever and other tropical diseases in her travels to Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas, the USA and England,” although in her memoir she mentioned Haiti and Cuba only in passing (“I visited also Hayti and Cuba” (5), and was never in the U.S.; in the Bahamas she collected “handsome shells and rare shellwork” for sale back in Jamaica, where they caused “a sensation” (5). When she earlier lived in England for 2 years, she sold West Indian preserves and pickles (4). When she came in 1854 her purpose was to look after her gold stocks (74).
Further, according to the RCN website, she learned about “surgical techniques and European medical practice” while in England; what? Where? (she said not a word to that effect in her memoir).

4. The RCN, jointly with other organizations, administers the Mary Seacole Leadership Awards, funded by the Dept of Health. A website providing application material states that the awards emphasize “Mary Seacole’s pioneering role in leadership.” Please state concretely what that pioneering leadership was.

We ask you to forward this request for information to the other officials (or former officials) of the RCN as necessary for response.

Yours sincerely

Mr Malcolm Cantello, president; Mr Alan Lovell, chief executive;
Ms Christina McAnea, head, Healthcare team
Unison Centre
130 Euston Road
London NW1 2AY

September 25, 2012

Dear Mr Cantello, Mr Lovell and Ms McAnea

We are writing to propose a rethinking of the importance of Florence Nightingale for nursing, for which you, as a major union, play an important role. We were unhappy and somewhat puzzled by the unanimous decision made back in 1999 to “ditch” Nightingale as the most significant founder of nursing, not least of all for the reasons stated. We suspect that those who voted simply did not know what Nightingale said and did to establish the modern profession. We note that the negative statements made about her were repeated in 2007 (“Kick over the Statues”) and on 12 May 2010, International Nurses’ Day.We would be pleased to meet with you or some representatives to pursue these issues. We think that Michael Walker and Wendy Wheeler have a point that the problem may be more in the “interpretation” of Nightingale’s legacy than in the legacy itself. Re-examination of what exactly she said and did would, we believe, lead to quite a different impression (see Did You Know below). There is much in Nightingale’s work that is still relevant today, especially on the principles of public health care, priority to health promotion and disease prevention, concern for occupational health and safety of healthcare workers, good salaries and working conditions.We want also to correct the misunderstandings in circulation on key points regarding Mary Seacole. We do not at all oppose recognition of her for her work, but rather the according to her of false accomplishments, some of them, in fact, Nightingale’s. So much misinformation about Seacole is now in circulation that it would be difficult for even the most fair-minded inquirer to get the story straight. We give as an example the statement made by your then president on becoming a patron of the Seacole Campaign:When Mary Seacole nursed the sick and wounded on the frontline in the Crimea she did not ask for, or expect any reward. She did it for the British troops, who she loved and admired.

But Seacole did not nurse the sick and wounded on the frontline at all, contrary to what is frequently said. Her British Hotel was a restaurant and store for officers, with minimal service to the troops. Seacole was generous to ordinary soldiers, but this was extra, volunteer work (and commendable): her main occupation was “sutler” or “provision merchant,” for which she had a business partner. She invested in the British Hotel, using the proceeds from her previous business of supplying gold miners on their way out to the California Gold Rush.

The website for the “The Mary Seacole (1805-1880) Campaign ‘Turn her into stone'” contains a number of serious errors, including a false accusation that Nightingale rejected Seacole as a nurse:

• Hearing of the poor medical provisions for would soldiers during the Crimean War, Seacole, who arrived in London in 1854, applied to the War Office and relevant authorities,
  But Seacole was en route to London on business regarding her gold stocks when the first battle took place, and only then decided, after Nightingale and her nurses departed, that she wanted to go to (see her Wonderful Adventures p 74).
• “She was turned down by all, including one of Florence Nightingale’s nurses,” but Nightingale never heard that she had applied.
• “Later the British Government decided to permit women to travel to the affected area. A party of 38 nurses was chosen by Florence Nightingale. Mary Seacole was not included.” No, the group had already left and Seacole was hoping to go with the second lot of nurses; her exclusion had nothing to do with Nightingale.
• “Instead she borrowed money to make the 4000 mile journey by herself at the age of 50. She set up a store and hotel.” She did not borrow money but used the profits from her last business venture; the “store and hotel” was a restaurant and store, a “mess table” for officers (see WA p 81).
• “Mary Seacole distinguished herself treating battlefield wounded and nursing wounded soldiers from both sides while under fire herself.” Seacole never made such a claim; on 3 occasions she went on to the battlefield, post-battle, with refreshments for sale; she also assisted with first aid. She used the expression “under fire” in quotation marks, as did others-for anyone walking around in the camps was at some risk. On one of her battlefield excursions she mentioned assisting Russians (see p 157).
• The “transcript of a letter” from Sir John Hall cited in the website was not a transcript, but part of Seacole’s own memoir, for which no documented source is known, and it is very unlikely to have been written by Hall (see p 170).
• The excerpt from Russell (although he was not then “Sir”) is correct as far as it goes, but it misleadingly omits his other remarks about her work as a “sutler,” or supplier of provisions, her chief work (see viii).

We must wonder about a union that calls for equal dignity for all attacking someone for her race, class of origin and religion, as Unison’s rejection of Nightingale in 1999 seems to do, for her being “white, middle class and Protestant.” This is the more remarkable when you support Seacole, who was three quarters white, also middle class and Roman Catholic.

We would agree that there are other “founders” of nursing worthy of recognition-Nightingale herself particularly appreciated Mary Jones and Sarah Wardroper. The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale provides information on a number of other worthy leaders.

Nursing leaders of diverse backgrounds of course should be celebrated. Some examples (a start) of African, West Indian and South Asian pioneer nurses are given, with information on Seacole, at http://www.maryseacole.info.

Elizabeth Fry was an early promoter of nursing, but her organization was chiefly for private nursing for the wealthy in their homes. Nor did she promote the development of a profession which Nightingale did. Making her the “founder” of nursing we suspect would be a step backwards.

We look forward to exploring these important issues with you. One of us, Lynn McDonald, lives in Canada but will be in London in the spring; the other three are resident in London and could be available earlier. McDonald, as well as being the one most knowledgeable about Nightingale, is a former Canadian MP (of a sister party to the Labour Party) and a successful advocate on women’s and public health issues.

Yours sincerely

Attachment to Letter to UNISON, September 25, 2012 from the Nightingale Society

Did You Know?

• That Nightingale did pioneering work on occupational health and safety for nurses;
• That she wanted nursing to be an independent profession; nurses would take medical instructions from doctors, but no doctor would hire, fire, discipline or promote a nurse; those decisions would be made by senior nurses;
• That Nightingale’s vision included a career path, with increases in salary and responsibility, through the ward sister to the superintendent or matron, which was a high paying job? That giving superintendents power to hire, discipline, etc., was to remove it from doctors, then 100% male when nurses were 100% female-it was an unspoken measure to prevent sexual harassment of vulnerable women nurses;
• While Nightingale wrote about “self sacrifice,” she consistently argued for good salaries and working conditions for nurses, holidays of at least a month per year; decent pensions; good living conditions during training; and hospital design to save nurses’ energy for patient care;
• That Nightingale worked mightily to make nurses givers of patient care, instead of hospital cleaners; hospitals should hire cleaners and nurses ensure that the job was done; nurses could not be the cleaners themselves.
• That “nurses,” before Nightingale’s time were not what we would recognize as nurses. In the army they were recruited from among the wives and widows of privates and non-commissioned officers (doctors were always officers), were paid less than cooks and laundresses, and reported to a sergeant. Before Nightingale’s time they would not have even spoken to a doctor; they were subordinate to a sergeant!
  Thus the statement that Nightingale wanted nurses to be “subordinate to doctors” misses the point. When she started her nursing school in 1860, women did not even have a high school education, let alone university. Doctors, with university and medical qualifications, would never have accepted them as equals. Nightingale worked prodigiously to improve the status of nurses, and saw it rise. When she started, “nurses” were listed with “domestic” servants in the Census; by 1901 they were in “medicine.” In the army they became “officers,” like doctors;
• Did you know that Nightingale worked to upgrade the terrible workhouse infirmaries into real hospitals? That she held that the same high quality of care available to the rich should be also for the poor? Is this not a message still needed today?
• Did you know that Nightingale worked with other professionals- doctors, statisticians, engineers, architects-on health care reforms? A union wanting to encourage its members to think of policy and advocacy would find much that is relevant in her example.
• Did you know that the original Elizabeth Garrett Hospital, where the Unison Centre now lives after much rebuilding, was a women’s hospital on whose design Nightingale worked? That she contributed to the funding for the hospital, and helped raise money for it?

For more on what Nightingale actually said and wrote see: www.uoguelph.ca/~cwfn.

Mrs Janice Murray, Director
National Army Museum
Royal Hospital Road
Chelsea
London SW3 4HT
September 10, 2012

Dear Mrs Murray

We are pleased to see that several of the errors on the National Army Museum’s website on Mary Seacole have been removed, a good step, for which our thanks, but we must note that serious mistakes remain. We suggest some alternative wordings:

Place of birth: Kingston, Jamaica (why not give her city and country of birth, instead of “West Indies”?)

I learned to be a “doctress” or herbalist from my mother and provided remedies to many people, in Jamaica, Panama and then at the Crimean War.

Omit “nursed thousands through the cholera and yellow fever epidemics.” Not true, she never claimed it (see her Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands).

Omit the sentence “four out of five men would die not in battle but of disease,” for four out of five men did not die, but roughly one out of five, and of these roughly four out of five died from disease, but Seacole could not have known that at the time, as the data were not published until much later. She went to the war out of a sense of patriotism, as she explained in her book. (See www.maryseacole.info/ for page numbers and quotations)

A group of women led by Florence Nightingale (why be coy?)

When I could not join the official team of nurses I went anyway. My business partner and I started a restaurant and store for officers near Balaclava. I also helped ordinary soldiers who came to me for remedies.

Omit the last section. She and her business partner had laid in expensive stores, and of course their huts could not be sold. The fund that paid for her support got its donations from officers, not ordinary soldiers.

The troops called me “Mother Seacole.” Many came to a large festival in my honour at Surrey Gardens in the summer of 1857, It was supposed to make enough money to help me, but did not. I went back to Jamaica for awhile, then returned to London. Some officers kindly started a fund to support me in my old age.

For information on Seacole see: www.maryseacole.info/
for Nightingale: www.uoguelph.ca/~cwfn
A reply would be appreciated: contact@nightingalesociety.com