Rt Hon George Osborne, PC, MP
Chancellor of the Exchequer
November 30, 2015

Dear Mr Osborne

The massive grant to the Mary Seacole statue is misplaced in three important respects: (1) Seacole was not a nurse, let alone a “Pioneer Nurse,” nor ever claimed to be one (in her book, “nurses” are Nightingale and her nurses); (2) the place is wrong, as St Thomas’ Hospital was for more than a century the home of the Nightingale School of Nursing, the first professional training school in the world, from which pioneers went out to bring the standards of the new profession to other countries. (3) It was Nightingale, not Seacole, who prepared briefs for committees, wrote and met with MPs and Cabinet ministers to press for reforms in nursing and health care.The process was flawed from the beginning. The Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust promised consultation on the statue, then made its decision without any (or consultation with an expert), behind closed doors. The high-circulation journal of the Royal College of Nursing, the Nursing Standard, does not permit articles critical of claims made by the campaign.

Mrs Seacole was an admirable, generous businesswoman, who deserves celebration. She should not, however, be credited with the work of another person. You should insist on a different site for the statue. Mrs Wendy Mathews, a Lambeth resident and former governor at St Thomas’ made a proposal at the Lambeth planning committee meetings.

How well she represents “black Britons” will likely be seriously challenged in coming years. She was three quarters white and proud of her Scots heritage; she had a white husband, white business partner and white clientele. She called herself a “yellow doctress,” not a “black nurse.” She employed blacks: two cooks, her porter and maid.

The Memorial Garden is a fine idea. However, it should not be associated with Seacole, who ran a business for officers, for profit, during the Crimean War, not a hospital for British soldiers, as is often incorrectly claimed. Did she put herself in “harm’s way”? According to her memoir, she went onto the battlefield three times during the war (she missed the first three battles as she was busy in London attending to her gold investments). The dates are in her book, as are the details of her sales of wine and sandwiches to spectators. Her forays onto the battlefield were post-battle, as noted by the Times correspondent, who was also on the battlefield, post-battle, to write up his stories.

Mrs Seacole was an honourable person who does not deserve to made a laughing stock. The statue as currently conceived will become known as a “History Hoax,” site for the giving out of History Hoax awards.

Yours sincerely

[14 members of the Nightingale Society]

Sept. 14, 2015

Is the Seacole Statue Jinxed?

We note the “delay” in unveiling a Mary Seacole statue in the garden of Nightingale’s hospital, St Thomas’, announced by Lord Soley, chair of the Seacole memorial campaign. The cause was a shortfall of nearly £200,000, the result of “soaring” construction costs. Yet the site has already been cleared and was even “blessed”!! before the fundraising was completed. We ask:

• Who authorized the site clearing, an ongoing eyesore? We understand that planning permission lapses after three years, over last April. Work should not have gone ahead without the full funding in place.
• Who pays for filling in and fixing up the site? Will NHS health care money be diverted for this purpose?
• The missing evidence for the “Pioneer Nurse” appellation. We have yet to receive an answer to our questions as to when and at what hospitals Seacole ever nursed, let alone gave her “life’s work” to developing nursing in England.
• What impact will a statue, or an empty site for one, have on the Bicentenary celebration of Nightingale’s birth, to take place in 2020? Should nurses be told not to come to London for Bicentenary events? Or to avoid Lambeth and St Thomas’?

TIME TO RETHINK!

We suggest that it is time to rethink the project. We do not at all object to celebrating Seacole’s life, as a businesswoman, volunteer and the author of a fine memoir-which never claimed “pioneer nursing”-but not as the founder of nursing.

We note the ties Seacole had with her late husband’s family in Lambeth, notably of Florence Seacole Kent, who married and lived there. Why not a site where Seacole had a real connection? instead of the hospital where Nightingale founded the first nurse training school in the world?

Yours sincerely
[signed]

Lord Soley, as chair of the Mary Seacole Memorial Fund Appeal, has announced that he has approached the army, not specifying at what level, regarding a memorial garden to be identified with Mary Seacole, with seats named in honour of nurses killed in conflict zones. Since there is a plan to have a Seacole statue in the garden of St Thomas’ Hospital, perhaps the intention is to expand that site-currently an eyesore-for the purpose. Or perhaps he has asked the Army to find a site. Could you clarify if any inquiries are in progress?

You may or not be aware of the close connection of St Thomas’ Hospital with Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), who headed the first team of British women to nurse in war. The nursing school she founded at St Thomas’, the first in the world, and which trained army nurses as well as civilian, was paid for by a fund raised in her honour, largely by the army, late in the Crimean War. That site remained the headquarters of nursing for more than a century, sending out trained nurses to introduce professional standards in hospitals throughout Britain and the world.
Mary Seacole was a businesswoman who ran, in effect, an officers’ club 1855-56. It was not a hospital or clinic, and she did not nurse the sick and wounded on the battlefield, as is so often claimed. She visited the local Land Transport Corps Hospital, near her business, to distribute magazines at it and send the occasional treat. This voluntary work was much appreciated, but to confuse it with the founding of the modern profession of nursing is nonsense.

Mrs Seacole sometimes called a “battlefield nurse,” when her forays onto the battlefield happened on three occasions, post-battle, after selling sandwiches and wine to spectators. She missed the first three, major, battles of the war as she was busy in London attending to her gold-mining investments (she had previously been in Panama with a business for men heading for the California Gold Rush). This is perfectly clear in her memoir, but her campaigners instead claim that she rushed to London to volunteer as a nurse!

We would be happy to furnish further details if any consideration is to be given to this memorial garden proposal. A website is available: www.maryseacole.info/

There is much to be said for the idea of a memorial garden for nurses, but it should be linked to real nurses who did give their lives to nurse in war.

Yours sincerely
(signed by 15 members of the Nightingale Society)

Dear Mayor and Lambeth Councillors

Re: Site Preparation for Mary Seacole Statue at St Thomas’ Hospital

We have written earlier with concerns about this statue, not about there being one, but its placement and message that someone other than Nightingale was the “Pioneer Nurse” at St Thomas’ Hospital, where her school led in the introduction of professional nursing throughout the world.

Our first question now concerns legal responsibility. Since the money has not all been raised, yet work is going ahead, who will be responsible for paying any missing amount? Lambeth ratepayers? Or will the NHS be expected to reallocate health care money for it?

Has any consideration been given to liability for graffiti, damage, etc? We would expect that the statue, if installed there, would for a time be a place to celebrate “diversity,” as is the plan.

But truth will out. Mrs Seacole was a fine person and worthy of being celebrated, but she was only one quarter black, and never identified herself as black or African. Indeed, she praised her (three quarters) Scottish heritage and disparaged her Creole. “Blacks” and “niggers” in her writing are always other people. See for example, her statement that, if her skin ‘had been as dark as any nigger’s,” she “should have been just as happy and as useful” (Seacole, Wonderful Adventures p. 48) and her references to her “good-for-nothing black cooks” (p. 141) and other not so nice references.

Her business was never a hospital, as is so often claimed, but was in effect an officers’ club. When a writer visited the Crimea years after the war he recalled seeing an “immense heap of broken bottles by the roadside…all that was left behind of Mrs Seacole’s famous store” (Arnold, From the Levant, the Black Sea and the Danube 2:184). The broken bottles may indeed have been the result of Mrs Seacole’s own hammering “case after case” of red wine, when she could not sell it when it was time to go home (p. 196). What happens if the statue site becomes a site for drinking and drunkenness? Who is liable?

Yours sincerely

Simon Stevens, CEO
england.contactus@nhs.net

Dear Mr Stevens

Re: Mary Seacole Statue to be Erected
Work is going ahead at St Thomas’ Hospital on the site for the proposed Mary Seacole statue, to be labelled “Pioneer Nurse,” on which we have raised vigorous objections (not to a statue anywhere, but not at Nightingale’s Hospital and not labelling a restaurant/bar owner a “Pioneer Nurse’).

Since the full amount of money has not been raised for the statue, we ask, will health care money go into paying for it?

We expect that, should the installation go ahead, the site will become in time a Monument to Political Correctness, or “Hugh and Ron’s Folly” Sir Hugh Taylor, chair of the Trust and Sir Ronald Kerr, chief executive, have been the great promoters of the statue. Their use of blatantly false material to defend use of the hospital site compounds the wrong. Should St Thomas’ be exempt from normal standards of objectivity, fairness and accuracy?

Nightingale wanted her nurses to be “truthful, honest and trustworthy,” which, apart from the redundancy, we think are still worthy qualities. She famously held that hospitals should, first of all, do no harm, and we might add that they, too, should be honest and trustworthy in their own statements.

Yours sincerely

Sir Ronald Kerr
Chief Executive Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
June 15, 2015

Dear Sir Ron

Thank you for your reply of June 9 2015.

We are very aware of the misinformation Lord Soley and his organization put out. If he has made any retractions or apologies, we would be glad to hear of them, so contact would be welcome. Thank you.

We note that the statue campaign website no longer displays the Crimean medal with 4 clasps, which Seacole did not win. However, no apology for the false claim has ever appeared.

That Lord Soley’s organization supplies misinformation does not justify the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust using it. We note that neither you nor Sir Hugh has ever given so much as one instance to justify the title “Pioneer Nurse” on the planned statue. We ask again. Failure to document any pioneering nursing should mean removal of the claim on the statue. Please respond.

We note your response that Trust funds will not go to funding the statue, but remain concerned about site preparation. Will a hole be left if the money is not raised? Who pays for looking after an empty site? Did anyone calculate the extra security that will likely be required when the statue loses its lustre? i.e., when political correctness no longer holds sway and people resent being taken in by your propaganda campaign?

Finally, we note the failure of the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust ever to retract the misinformation it circulated in 2011 to justify the statue in the first place. We remain with Nightingale in the view that nurses should be “honest, truthful and trustworthy,” and would want the hospital of her school to meet this standard, too. That you have not requires attention and redress.

Yours sincerely

[signed]

copy: Dr Ronald Trubuhovich, OMNZ, FRCA, FANZCA-whose letter to you with pertinent concerns remains unanswered

Sir Hugh Taylor and Sir Ron Kerr

Dear Sirs

Re: Liability for the Mary Seacole Statue

We are concerned with the announcement that preparation of the site for the Mary Seacole statue is going ahead, even though not all the money has been raised to pay for it.

Who will be responsible for any gap in funding? Will health care money be redirected to pay the costs?

We inquire also about liability for maintenance if the installation goes ahead. What happens when the honeymoon is over, and people begin to realize that Mrs Seacole was not the “Pioneer Nurse” claimed? Or that she was not a “black nurse,” for she did not identify as a black or African but rather disparaged those roots while she praised her Scottish heritage. This is understandable given the mores of the time, but it hardly makes for a good role model.

What happens when Seacole’s own words come to be suspect, as in her statement that, if her skin ‘had been as dark as any nigger’s,” she “should have been just as happy and as useful” (Seacole, Wonderful Adventures p. 48) and her references to her “good-for-nothing black cooks” (p. 141).

Who is responsible if the site becomes a location for drinking and damage, after the honeymoon is over? “Mrs Seacole’s” was effectively an officers’ club, never a hospital, as so often claimed, a source for champagne, fine wines, meals, sherry and catering for officers’ dinner parties. When a writer visited the Crimea years after the war he recalled going past the site, where there was an “immense heap of broken bottles by the roadside… all that was left behind of Mrs Seacole’s famous store” (Arnold, From the Levant, the Black Sea and the Danube 2:184).

The broken bottles may indeed have been the result of Mrs Seacole’s own hammering “case after case” of red wine, when she could not sell it when it was time to go home (p. 196).

The Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, alas, gave such an fallacious presentation of Seacole’s life that people may not realize the risks of the truth coming out, as it often does. Statues can acquire a negative meaning as times change.

Yours sincerely