Erecting a statue in her honour mounted on the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital at Westminster, London.Since then, Britain has memorialized her by:
Mary was not only feted with a 4-day fundraising gala attended by 80,000 persons, but was provided with a government pension for life. In 1991, Mary Seacole was awarded Jamaica’s third highest national honour, Order of Merit (0.M.) but otherwise remains on the fringes of Jamaican history.Ĭontrast that with the recognition given to Mary Seacole and the gratitude shown by her ‘second country’, Great Britain, beginning with the immediate years after the end of the Crimean War when she returned from nursing British soldiers at the battlefront, broke and penniless. Mary Seacole is remembered by the NAJ once a year when its members observe International Nurses Day alongside her nemesis that ‘other lady with the lamp’ Florence Nightingale. The Nurses Association of Jamaica (NAJ) memorializes her with a portrait on the outside wall of its Headquarters at 72 Arnold Road in Kingston and in 1963 acquired its own bust which rests in the foyer of its headquarters. True, there is a hall of residence for ladies on the Mona campus, Jamaica of the University of the West Indies named after her and the front entrance of the Institute of Jamaica is graced with a plaque in her honour as well as housing the replica of a terra cotta bust said to be sculpted by Queen Victoria’s nephew Count Gleichen. In the pantheon of Jamaican heroic figures, the name Mary Seacole is rarely, if ever mentioned.
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