IN SEARCH OF MARY SEACOLE

The riveting tale of a Jamaican nurse who became a celebrated Victorian.

In 2002, British historian Rappaport discovered a lost portrait of Mary Seacole (1805-1881), a nurse, herbalist, and caregiver who had been as famous as her contemporary, Florence Nightingale. The portrait inspired the author’s quest to investigate Seacole’s storied life, resulting in a snappy biography interwoven with a chronicle of tenacious—often frustrating—research. In 1857, Seacole published a bestselling memoir—Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands—but it was highly selective, missing “evidence of almost all the key landmarks in her life.” Seacole’s race, class, and gender made Rappaport’s research challenging. Born in Jamaica to a White father and a mother with a “mixed-heritage” background, Seacole had no formal training as a nurse, but she learned holistic and traditional medicine by watching her mother. In Jamaica and later in Panama, she gained hard-earned experience treating patients with cholera and yellow fever, earning the gratitude of soldiers, officers, and visiting aristocrats. In 1854, she sailed for England, determined to serve in the Crimean War. Rejected by “official channels,” Seacole nevertheless found backing for her venture. Accompanied by a teenager who most likely was her daughter, she spent 16 months in the war zone treating soldiers. After the war ended, she returned to London, roundly hailed with honors. Besides her remedies—and stores of liquor—she was praised for her generosity and compassion, unlike the overbearing Nightingale. “There could have been no greater contrast between them,” Rappaport notes, “Seacole, warm, open and solicitous in her uniquely Jamaican way; Nightingale, guarded, frosty and with a clinical detachment that did not invite friendship.” In fact, Nightingale saw Seacole as a rival and treated her with hostility. In 2004, Seacole was voted the Greatest Black Briton, an accolade that, in Rappaport’s view, she amply deserved. Readers of this well-constructed portrait will agree.

A strong-willed woman revived by an indefatigable biographer.