You're Dead to Me - Mary Seacole

Episode Date: November 5, 2021

Greg Jenner is joined by Prof Gretchen Gerzina and comedian Nathan Caton to delve into the extraordinary life and adventures of the 19th-century celebrity, Mary Seacole. Mary was born and raised in Jamaica and rose to fame as a businesswoman and a volunteer nurse during the Crimean War. The episode explores her childhood of practising healing techniques on her pets, the perils of Panama, her experience of cholera, how she dealt with racists, the risks of running a business in a warzone and why she loved being famous.Research: Hannah McKenzie Script: Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Project management: Siefe Miyo Edit producer: Cornelius Mendez

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. All day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me from Radio 4, a comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster, and I'm the chief nerd on the funny kids TV show, Horrible Histories. And today we are jumping back to the 19th century to travel the world and tend to the sick and injured with the extraordinary businesswoman, traveller and healer, Mary Seacole. And to help me do that, I am joined by two very special guests. In History Corner, she's the Paul Murray Kendall Chair in Biography and Professor

of English at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She's a renowned expert on the biographies of 19th century black people in the UK and USA and on interracial relationships. And she's a broadcaster, the author of many important books, including most recently Britain's Black Past, which became a 10-part radio series on the BBC, is Professor Gretchen Gazina. Welcome, Gretchen. Hello, Greg. It's so nice to be here. And in Comedy Corner, he's an award-winning comedian and writer. You may have seen him on Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, Russell Howard's Good News,

or caught him on BBC Radio 4's The Now Show, or his Radio 4 show Can't Tell Nathan Caton Nothing. And of course, you'll have heard him on our show, You're Dead to Me, where we did an episode on Notting Hill Carnival. It's the delightful Nathan Caton. Welcome back, Nathan. Hey, what's going on, mate? You all right? I'm good. Welcome back to the show. Last time we had you on, Nathan, you said that history at school was not your thing. And I quote, you said it was all right. Not a ringing endorsement, but you know, okay. Firstly, are you still feeling ambivalent to history? And secondly,

have you heard of Mary Seacole? Does the name ring a bell? In regards to history? I I mean it's still cool I mean it's there it's cool it's all good and do I know who Mary Seacole is? Yes I know that she is the nurse of all nurses

and if she was alive during this pandemic we would have been clapping for her not just Thursday but Monday to Sunday Yeah absolutely she did quite a lot else as well she's quite an extraordinary person. So what do you know?

This brings us to the first segment of the podcast, the So What Do You Know, where I have a go at guessing what you at home might know about today's subject. And I think like Nathan, the name Mary Seacole is going to definitely ring some bells. She was a black British nurse in the 1800s, best known for treating soldiers during the Crimean War. You may have seen that she's had a statue erected recently outside St Thomas's Hospital in London. She's been the face of a first class stamp. And there's a film coming out and it stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, a very talented actress, so hopefully it'll be a good movie. And of course, if you've heard our radio show for kids, Homeschool History, you'll know about Mary Seacole there as well. But what else do we need to know apart from her most famous Crimean

activities? Let's find out, shall we? Professor Gretchen, Mary Seacole is not born Mary Seacole. Can you tell us about her childhood, please? Mary was born Mary Jane Grant in Kingston in the colony of Jamaica, November 1805. Her father was James Grant, a Scottish lieutenant in the British Army. She had a sister called Eliza Grant and a half-brother named Edward. Sadly, we don't know her mother's name, but we do know that she was a mixed-race Jamaican woman. At the time of Mary's birth, the West Indies was an outpost of the British Empire, so there was a large British military presence. So we don't know much about her mum. We'll just call her Mrs Grant. But we do know that Mrs Grant

owns a pretty nice boarding house called Blundell Hall. It's one of the best boarding houses, best hotels really in Kingston and Jamaica.amaica and mrs grant was known as a doctress nathan do you know what a doctress might have been uh a doctor with more class like really really fancy hats yeah yeah i mean you thought you had it good with a doctor well doctor it's the waitress equivalent of medicine. It's just a little bit fancier. No, I think doctress, Gretchen, is an interesting term that I guess speaks to the Caribbean culture. Can you tell us more? Well, first of all, I think the name doctoress should go the way of poetess, negress, or any of those words that add the feminine ending.

As a doctress, she practiced traditional African and Jamaican herbal medicine, which would have been seen as very different to the type of care provided by European doctors who would favor pills over the kinds of organic materials Mary's mother would have provided, such as flowers and roots. So Mary's mom is running a hotel, but also is a local healer. And Mary herself, young Mary, picks up her own healing skills, Nathan. How do you think she practices her skills as a young girl? I would guess on toys. If it wasn't anything like me, I would have tried on like turtles, action figures leonardo he can fight again

it's too late for donatello he's a goner yeah donatello's gone save yourself leo save yourself leo yeah you're absolutely right she started by treating her dolls her cats and her dogs she said in her memoir whatever disease was most prevalent in kingston be sure my poor dolly soon contracted it i'm guessing that's not how stand-up comedy works, right, Nathan? You didn't start by testing your material on your various toys. I actually started testing out my jokes on my mum, who had the same facial expressions of my toys after hearing my material. Just stone-faced, no emotion. All right, so young Mary grew up in Blundell Hall, which is this respectable boarding house. She's practicing healing. She's meeting military types, British army officers who are staying at the hotel. She's hearing their travel stories from around the world. She's having quite an interesting

childhood. Is she getting any other formal education, Gretchen? She didn't go to school the way we might think of that today, but she did receive an education in the house of a patroness, another S word, who she describes in her autobiography as a surrogate grandmother. She also learned how to run a hotel from her. So although it was against the law at the time for multiracial children of a white father to inherit or benefit legally from his estate, Mary was still a well-educated daughter of a Scottish officer and a mixed-race woman with a respectable business. Mary, as a teenager, she gets the travel bug quite young. Aged 16,

she's off on adventure. Where do you think this Jamaican teenager goes, Nathan? Gosh, at 16, where do you go? If you're 16 years old in Jamaica, I mean, surely you just stay in Jamaica. I mean, why would you leave the Caribbean just over the water I'm gonna guess America New York Miami something like that that's a good guess that's certainly where I would have gone but she went the other way she went to London age 16 and she travels by ship do you want to guess how long it takes to get there I remember vaguely my grandma telling me because she came from Antigua uh about a month to six weeks. Oh, that's not far off.

This is a long time ago when ships are a bit ropey. But yeah, about eight to ten weeks, we reckon. So she's a 16-year-old young girl on a ship for well over probably two months. What was the voyage like, Gretchen? And how did Mary find London? Did she enjoy it? Well, first of all, I love traveling by ship. And I've crossed the Atlantic seven times because I don't like to fly. Oh, okay. It was not like that for Mary. It was not comfortable. Some passengers, particularly English women,

seem to have found the journey very difficult and uncomfortable. Mary seemed to have enjoyed herself and arrived in London relatively safe and sound. It's a long time on a ship, Nathan. I mean, eight to ten weeks on a boat. I mean, there's only so many Sudoku. Imagine being 16 years old, eight to ten weeks on a ship with no Wi-Fi. How do you survive? I guess you do a lot of selfies with seagulls, probably. But she stayed for a year, enjoyed it, and she heads back aged 18.

And this time she comes as a businesswoman. What do you reckon her business is? I mean, I would guess it's like local remedies from the Caribbean that she's bought. You are definitely in the right area. It's more Caribbean food. Obviously, I should have guessed that. That's one thing we do well. Yeah, she becomes London's new exciting importer of West Indian pickles and preserves.

So she's the pickle magnate. She shows up with jars and jars and jars of pickles. exciting importer of West Indian pickles and preserves. So she's the pickle magnate. She shows up with jars and jars and jars of pickles. She's selling them to hotels, restaurants, friends. She makes quite good money and she doesn't have a chaperone. She doesn't have a sponsor. She is an 18 year old from the Caribbean. She's a mixed race woman. She's just shown up in London with her business. Quite commendable. She's full of bold confidence. She was basically the original human shepherd's bush market of her generation. Maybe she founded it. Maybe that's why it's there now. Nathan, architecture is the thing you studied and then you went into comedy. But if I'd said to you,

no, I need you to run a teenage business, what would your apprentice style business model have been? At 18 years old? Yeah. Probably something I cannot say on have been at 18 years old yeah probably something i cannot say on radio 18 year old boy um so we've got mary grant returning to kingston in jamaica from london in early 1826 but on the voyage back nathan her ship catches fire and it's quite serious we don't swim as well i'm not sure anyone swims that well in the fire. And it's quite serious. We don't swim as well. I'm not sure anyone swims that well in the Atlantic. It's quite a long way. There is a point where they are weighing up whether to jump into the sea and hope to be rescued by another

ship. And Mary cuts a deal with the ship's cook. She pays him two pounds, quite a lot of money. And the idea is that if it comes to the to abandon ship he's going to tie her to a wooden chicken coop and chuck her over the side in the hope that it floats there's a certain resourcefulness even in a crisis that you've got to admire i'm not sure i'd think that through but if that was me i'd just be like screaming and praying to god as i'm jumping in the water i'm not trying to oh it's trying to negotiate a deal some safety i wouldn't have the composure to do that but just the haggling can only last so long, can't they? Because the fire's getting bigger and bigger. Exactly. It's like, hurry up, it's getting warmer, hurry up.

Well, the ship did not sink. They managed to extinguish the fire. So she didn't have to jump into the sea attached to a chicken coop. But back in Jamaica, Mary returns to working with her mother, Mrs. Grant, in the hotel. But Gretchen, she meets a fella and she falls in love. And this is Mr. Seacole. Do you want to tell us about Edwin Horatio Seacole? It's quite a handle, that name. 10th of November in 1836, Mary Grant, as she was, married Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole. Edwin was an English merchant and he would have been quite unusual for an interracial couple to marry.

English merchant, and it would have been quite unusual for an interracial couple to marry. Early on in their marriage, Edwin and Mary tried unsuccessfully to run a general store, but they ended up moving back to Blundell Hall. He wasn't well, however, and she had to look after him quite a lot. There's rumours that he is the kind of illegitimate child of Lord Nelson, hence the name Horatio. We're not sure if that's true, but he seems to have a connection maybe. But yeah, Edwin is not very well. He's very poorly. And unfortunately, tragedy soon strikes. In fact, Gretchen, it's a triple tragedy for Mary. She has some really bad luck. Yeah, poor Mary. Sadly, Blundell Hall burnt down in 1843, and then her husband and mother both died in 1844. In the midst of all this tragedy, Mary, now Seacole, kept herself busy and rebuilt the hotel better than before, she says.

She took charge of the establishment and apparently turned down lots of marriage proposals. Yeah, she doesn't need any fellas. As you're saying that, in my head, I had Disney's child and Beyonce. I'm a way man who's independent. Throw your hands up at me. They do obviously rebuild the hotel. What do you think they call the new hotel? Well, it's got to be Edwin Hall.

Oh, that's nice. That's a very sweet gesture, Nathan. You clearly are showing a real romantic heart there. No, she went with new Blundell Hall, better than before, new improved recipe. So new Blundell Hall rises from the ashes. The really interesting moment in her medical career, I don't know if medical is quite the word, but let's say healing career, is in 1850. We get a cholera outbreak on Jamaica, and it's really serious, isn't it, Gretchen?

Yeah, it killed 32,000 Jamaicans. She hadn't witnessed the disease before and how cholera spread was not yet fully understood. There were two views. Some people thought that it went person to person contact and the other view was that it passed through the miasma sort of in the air. Mary believed that it was spread by person to person contact and she couldn't do much for people, but she tried her best to help them. Yeah. So in 1850, she is 45 years old, trying to help people in the middle of this really dangerous outbreak. But the following year that cholera goes away in 1851, she's a bit bored, right? She's been to London, she's traveled, she's survived a shipwreck almost. You know, she's lived through a cholera epidemic. She's like, life is a little bit samey. So she's off to go and visit her half-brother, Edward.

He has had this maverick idea of setting up a hotel and general store in Cruces in Panama. So you said before, Nathan, heading to America. This is Central America. Gretchen, let's be generous here and say that he's, you know, it's a startup business. It's not necessarily that luxurious, but it's a startup business. It's not necessarily that luxurious, but it's a bit shambolic when she arrives, isn't it? I don't think that she was expecting how bad it was, but I'll be kind to him. But she and her maid had to sleep under the dining room table in a makeshift tent while her brother

and the other staff slept on top of the table. While she was there, a friend of her brother's mysteriously died after eating at the hotel one night. It was assumed that he had been poisoned, but Mary asked to examine the body and discovered that he had died of cholera. By lunchtime the next day, another man had also died, and Mary immediately started treating him with mustard and calomel, or mercuric chloride to blister him. And he lived. I'm not sure which was worse. Yeah, there's some fairly strong remedies here that Mary's using. So the first thing to say here, Nathan, is that Cruz says it's a smallish town, but it's a point where travelers stop off. They're trying to get through Panama to go to California.

The Dubai of Central America. Not quite as luxuriously uh appointed with hotels i don't think basically i mean people are trying to get to the california gold rush and one of the quickest routes is down through panama so you've got a lot of people traveling it's not very well resourced town and mary very quickly they spot that she's like the only person who knows what they're doing in terms of medicine. So she's the town's best hope. And so she starts treating people. She treats the poor for free and she charges the wealthy.

How do you feel about that, Nathan? Oh, she's the right person to the people, isn't she? Great. Keir Starmer, Jeremy Corbyn, eat your heart out. That's how you look after the people. She sounds like everyone's mum. It's lovely. Well, later on in the episode you'll hear exactly

that's how people thought of her Gretchen Mary Seacole has seen cholera before but we at this point in history don't really have medical knowledge of how cholera works there's no germ theory quite yet so how does Mary know how to treat this or is she just figuring it out by going well not that not this I've only got this in my bag. What's her process? Yeah, her training was in traditional medicine and healing, but she had a lot of intellectual curiosity and had secretly performed an autopsy to learn more information about the disease. And in truth, some of her cures were probably not helpful, but she was trying her best. Cinnamon water probably helped rehydrate some patients. Many of her patients died, but some lived. And then she also contracted cholera herself

and had to rest for several weeks. This would have been really unpleasant, but she did recover, which meant she now had firsthand experience of what the disease actually felt like and made her even more empathetic to the victims and those who are still suffering. Nathan, she gets cholera. It's not the sniffles here. This is a lethal disease that's killed 30,000 in Jamaica. It's pretty serious. Listen, I know how I am when I get man flu, so I can only imagine. She didn't have the same education that we might have now, but was she strong in a scientific field? I'm guessing you have to be pretty smart with sciences to you know work out what medicines to use and stuff many of the

medicines we have today were all derived from the kinds of things that mary hadden was doing so she has some knowledge of how these things work and what to do with them and what to use to treat certain things yeah and she does by the sound of it, save some people. And of course she survives, which would be a very short podcast if she didn't. Mary has basically spotted a gap in the market. So what do you think she does next for Nathan? It depends what the gap is. Well, it could be the cure for cholera, because no one else has got that. No, she basically tries to open her own hotel across the road from her brother's.

I don't know if they're in competition. That's pretty harsh if they are. It's like Adidasler She opens a business called the British Hotel and it's a restaurant. It has only two rooms. So it's not really a hotel at all, actually. And she can fit 50 diners in. So it's a sort of canteen. It's nice. But she's also got a luxury service that she added, a barber's service. There's a barber called Joseose you can get your haircut in the back so you can get a trim obviously she'd had blundell hall new blundell hall so surely she should have called it new new blundell hall but blundell hall 3.0 so this one's called the british hotel barber's service in the back gate what would your hotel hotel be called, Nathan? And also, what luxury service would you offer in your establishment? Okay, I'd be really immature.

I would call my hotel your mum's house. That's nice, yeah. Just so I can hear people go, where are you staying tonight? I'm staying at your mum's house. That's the kind of immature person I am. I could get a coupon for your mum's house and then... Yeah, exactly. Mate, you're sending little keychains.

I was at your mum's house last night on the keychain. What's the service you'd offer as the... Hopefully not anything related to your mum's house. I mean, I'm back away from that question now. No, okay. My luxury service. My girlfriend says I get a good shoulder massage. So I would offer a nice relaxing shoulder massage all right well

i'm definitely checking into your mum's house so mary has set up a new business in cruces in panama and her life is full of drama and danger there's quite a lot of violence in cruces there's a couple of women who get in a punch up and then steal her stuff there's a man who pulls a knife on her when he's trying to burgle her people have guns This is not necessarily the ideal place for a widow in her mid-40s running a business. And the other question, I suppose, Gretchen, is the question of her race, so she has three white grandparents. She's mixed race, but she is encountering racial prejudice. She's a woman of color and she is facing racism. Yeah, she described herself as a yellow woman.

And as you mentioned, three of her grandparents were white, but she regularly faced racism. And she recalled an American gentleman praising her for all the healing she had done during the cholera epidemic, but then commiserating with her that God had neither seen fit to make her an American nor fully white, so she might be accepted in any company as she deserves to be. How do you think that went down with Mary, Nathan? Well, if she's anything like me, I would have prayed that he got cholera and just watched him slowly suffer. Okay. You want my help now? slowly suffer okay you want my help now huh i guess i'm not welcome to give it to you i mean she's not quite as brutal as that she responds quite a nice burn actually she says as to the society which the process of bleaching my skin might gain me admission to all i can say

is that judging from the specimens i have met with here and elsewhere i don't think i shall lose much by being excluded from it so gentlemen I drink to you and the general reformation of American manners. That was her way of saying, your mum. Not your hotel, but yeah, exactly. So in true Mary Seacole fashion, she's off again in 1852. She's moving. Where's she going this time? In 1852, Mary moved to Gorgona, which I hope I've pronounced correctly, which is an island off the Pacific coast of Colombia. She built and briefly ran a females-only hotel, but then she returned to Jamaica in the same year as that was not very lucrative,

possibly because the only sort of clientele she hoped to attract, i.e. American women, would rather stay in an American hotel than one run by a mixed race person. And in fact, when she tried to get a ship home to Jamaica, she was racially abused by some passengers and then had to wait for another ship in order to get home. Gretchen, you're an expert on interracial marriages and mixed relationships in the 19th century. And Mary Seacole is an interesting figure in that regard, in that she is mixed race. She has three white grandparents. But of course, she's perceived slightly differently by Americans than by Brits and by herself.

Is that a common thing in this period? Yeah. In fact, I was thinking through some earlier things, and almost all the difficulties that we have in letters and things come from Americans who don't approve. So for instance, Dido, Elizabeth Bell was in the film. Her uncle, where she lived, her great uncle, he had American guests coming to stay, and they would say terrible things about her. And they just couldn't understand why he would have a woman like her in his house, even though she was related to him. So Americans, first of all, had made interracial marriage illegal. It wasn't illegal in Britain.

So yeah, I think the Americans could be very rough on people like Mary. And when Mary visited London when she was a teenager, she came with a friend and her friend was exposed to more racism than Mary was. So she's a complicated character in that way because in her memoirs, Mary sometimes wants to be part of the British Empire and sometimes she's very proud of her Creole heritage. So in some ways she was negotiating how people perceived her and trying not to be discriminated against. This is a sad part of her memoir where she's racially abused and doesn't want to get on a boat. But she never stops, of course, and she goes back to Jamaica, Nathan, of course, and this time there is another outbreak of disease. This time it's yellow fever,

and she's working at the military hospital, which is called Up Park Camp, and she is hiring local nurses. She's treating the officers and their families in her hotel, New Blundell Hall. Again, frontline nursing. And she's trusted by the British Army. She's very brave, I think, in a lot of ways. I kind of feel like, sorry for her in a sense, that she comes back to Jamaica,

then there's a yellow fever outbreak. Surely, there must have been a point where she was thinking, can't a girl just catch a break? It's Jamaica, I just want to chill out. I want to go to the beach. Can't a girl just rest, please? The 19th century Caribbean was a dangerous place. There were, unfortunately,

a lot of tropical diseases. But yeah, she's working her socks off, trying to save lives. But then in 1854, she moves again. This time, Nathan, where do you think she's going now? Okay, where hasn't she been? Australia, that's too far. I mean, that's like a year on a ship, isn't it? Okay, I'm going to say, let's go Central Europe.

Oh, it's a nice guess. No, she goes to Central America again, but a different part of Central America. She goes and joins up at a gold mining company in New Granada, which is, I think, maybe Colombia. And this time she's not helping her brother out, Edward. She's instead helping out another person who's connected to her husband. This guy's called Thomas Day. Gretchen, can you tell us a bit more? Yeah, he was, as you said, a relative of her late husband.

And there in New Granada, she provided care and probably cooked as well for the company's staff. in New Granada, she provided care and probably cooked as well for the company's staff. And she remembered taking a lot of walks, kicking rocks to see if she could find a piece of gold. She only ever found fool's gold. You didn't find it usually lying around on the path. And it's around this time she heard about the Crimean War. I think gold mining, generally speaking, you have to do some digging. You can't just I mean, that's how i do gold mining i just sort of shuffle around going any gold no all right just go but yeah this is where she hears about the crimean war which is looming on the horizon it hasn't quite broken out yet nathan do

you know anything about the crimean war i know that the crimean wars between the british forces and the russian allegiance that's all i know that's prettyan War was between the British forces and the Russian allegiance. That's all I know. That's pretty good knowledge, to be honest. Yeah, it's quite a complicated war, and I won't bore you with it. But it's British, French, Sardinian, and Turkish alliance versus the Russian Empire. And it all starts in the region we call Crimea, which is on the Black Sea coast near Ukraine. So a long way away, Russian expansion has basically brought Britain and France into the war. Britain and France used to be enemies, and now they're on the same side, which is quite awkward. And Mary reads a newspaper report that this war is coming.

She gets on the ship and heads to London. Obviously, it takes her weeks to get there. It's a really bold thing to do. But I suppose, if you think about it, she loves soldiers. Her dad was in the military. She spent all this time growing up with soldiers in the hotel. There have been British regiments stationed in her hotel and staying with her during outbreaks of disease.

And she says that she feels maternal instinct, Nathan. She feels like their mum. She wants to go and make sure they're okay. I mean, you could almost say she's too brave for her own good or too caring for her own good. Most people would stay away from an area of war. Especially if you're in Jamaica, or Colombia, and someone says, Oh, there's a war. Where? On the other side of the world.

You'd be like, OK, good for them. Another drink, please. You'd be like, I'm going to get on a ship and head in that direction. Yeah, and she runs towards danger. Mary Seacole arrives in Southampton on October 18th, 1854. When she gets off the ship, she's handed a newspaper, and the British army has already fought a major battle at a place called Alma, and already things have gone horribly wrong. I mean, Nathan, I don't know if you know about the Crimean War's reputation,

but it's one of the sort of disastrous wars in British history. It starts terribly for the Brits. They haven't got enough supplies and tents and shoes and their soldiers are freezing to death. There's not enough food, their disease breaks out, the hospitals are overwhelmed, there's not enough doctors and nurses. It's an absolute crisis. It actually brings down the British Prime Minister.

Britain not having supplies, Britain a bit overwhelmed. Where have we heard of that before? Completely unrelated to contemporary history happening right now. Yeah. The British Prime Minister is brought down by the Crimean War. It's an absolute scandal. The most famous nurse, obviously, that people listening will know is Florence Nightingale. And Florence is literally about to leave with her first team of nurses when Mary Seacole arrives. So three days later, Florence is off. Gretchen, in her autobiography, which is a brilliant read, listeners, I absolutely recommend it. It's really good fun.

Mary tells us that she tries to join Florence Nightingale's nursing team, the second wave. And so she sort of rocks up to Whitehall in London and knocks on the door of the war office and goes, Hello, I'm Mary Seacole. And goes, I'm a doctoress. I've worked in a gold mine. I'm a nurse. I've helped the British army. I can help. And they say, who are you? Go away. What do we know about this encounter, Gretchen?

Is it that straightforward? Well, she arrives fully believing that just by being herself and offering her services and handing over some letters of recommendation or her CV or whatever she had at the time, that they would be thrilled to have her. But instead, they were shunting her around from the war office to the medical office and no luck. She tried to appeal to the Secretary of War's wife, Elizabeth Herbert, but she told Mary that all the positions were filled. But really, other women Mary's age had been deemed too old. Mary later asked in her memoir whether her skin color was to blame for the rejections, because in London, nobody believed a Creole woman could be an accomplished nurse or a

doctress. And it was the first time in her life that she found herself not valued at all. This is a sort of tricky point for historians with Mary Seacole, because there's no evidence of her applying for these jobs, right? We don't have any forms, any documents, there's no sort of CV she handed in, which doesn't mean that it didn't happen. So it might be that she sort of, you know, just showed up, assuming that she'd just be put on the boat. And they were like, well, there's an official process and you're too late. But the interesting thing about Mary Seacole is that we don't have any evidence for her other than what she says about herself until she gets to the Crimea.

Her whole life up to this point, age 49 or so, is Mary's word. And I'm happy to take her word, but like, it's kind of fascinating. We don't have quite a lot of stuff that can back up her tales. We just have to go with her memoirs. Have you checked her LinkedIn page? I haven't yeah that's a good idea she also says she applies for the crimean fund which is a public fundraiser again apparently she's turned down nathan hearing what you've heard so far about mary seacole how

do you feel she takes these knockbacks oh i i've no doubt that she had that mentality whatever doesn't kill you just makes you stronger you know, and she just brushed off her shoulder, carried on going. Absolutely right. So what is the plan B option, Gretchen? She always seems to have another plan up her sleeve or another way to get around doing what she wants to do. So after all these rejections, she decides to fund herself. She goes back to Thomas Day, her husband's relative, and collaborates with him to set up another business, this time in the Crimea. She gets business cards printed and boards a steamer for Constantinople. And when she arrives, she meets a Turkish officer who helps her set up a supply chain.

to Florence Nightingale's hospital at Scutari briefly meets her and then heads across the sea to the Crimea itself, arriving four days later at the harbour in the middle of a war zone, ready to start another business. It's great, isn't it, Nathan? He's like, I'll just head into the war zone then. Yeah, to start a business. You could have done that in Jamaica in peace and quiet. I do really want to see this episode of the apprentice well my business model is i'm gonna go to a very dangerous place i'm out i haven't finished yet no i've heard war zone i'm out this is literally a war zone this is literally front lines and the business model it's a sort of canteen shop it's a sort of restaurant of sorts it's a bit like what she did in Panama. And so they eventually settled in a village called Kadikoy, about three, four miles from the battlefield and near the besieged city of Sebastopol, which is this Russian-held city that the British are besieging, the French and British and Turkish and Sardinians. And of course, she's got to start a new business. So she's sent out the business cards in advance so people know she's coming and what do you think their business is called Nathan? The British Blundell business.

Nice squeeze them all in yeah she goes for the simpler option of the British Hotel mark two I guess so again the name British Hotel suggests class suggests a high caliber building you studied architecture nathan what kind of materials would you be looking to build your fancy hotel from marble lots of like pillars like you know ancient greek style inspired architecture so your mom's house is is marble that's the look that's the vibe okay yeah mary seacole didn't have marble not really available in the war zone she had driftwood basically she has random bits of wood she pulls out of the sea bits of corrugated metal she finds some window bits it's a shack right she builds a shack she gets a bit of help from the local

turkish commander she calls him the pasha he lends a few blokes she picks up some brits as well a couple of carpenters and they just basically assemble this shack four miles from the battlefield. And she calls it the British Hotel. I mean, Gretchen, it's not a hotel. No'm not even convinced it had a front door. She was a sutler, which means that she sold provisions to the ordinary troops and then ran a canteen. But for the rich officers, she gave more of a restaurant kind of service. The Turkish pasha that she calls him in the book was a regular guest. And he offered Mary his help in exchange for teaching him English. And that didn't go so great. Apparently, after two years, all he had learned to say was her name and how to say, gentlemen, good morning, and more champagne. Other guests included the French celebrity chef Alexis Soyer.

They were also keen tourists who wanted to see the war up close. So they would go stay, eat there and look at the war while they were eating. So the hotel seems to have had some quality customers. She hired two black cooks, but she also cooked herself. In the autobiography, she talks about the fact that whenever I had a few leisure moments, I used to wash my hands, roll up my sleeve and roll out pastry. Her milkless rice pudding was famous, as was her sausage and mash. So it's kind of basic food that she's serving. If I was served that, I would not complain. I'd be like, yo, it's free food. It's good. I'm taking

it. Yeah, absolutely. I love the fact that the Turkish pasha learned two phrases, morning, gentlemen, and more champagne. That's all you need, right? Yeah, exactly. He can come to Britain. He'd get by on that easily. Be everyone's friend. He'd be fine in Westminster. He'd probably be in his sort of backbench MP. Exactly. The British hotel is not especially glamorous, really. You said, Gretchen, she hires a couple of black cooks.

We know she's working with local Greek people she picks up as servants. She calls them Johnnies. She can't learn any of their names. She calls them all just Johnnies. You, you're a Johnny. You'll be a Johnny. You, also a Johnny. She has a lot of problems, Nathan.

She's got supply issues. She's got rats running around. There are people stealing stuff of her all the time. It's a war zone. So like literally, you know, there are shells going off, people dying and people stumbling in covered in blood. And i suppose really that brings us then on to the thing that you knew about her nathan the nursing right we've heard her you know dealing with cholera and yellow fever and so on but it's the crimean nursing that has made her famous first in the 19th century and then of

course to modern school kids and many of our listeners. So Gretchen, what kind of nursing are we talking here? She's not Florence Nightingale. She's not setting up beds and, you know, with a clipboard and administration. It's more maternal. Is that right? Yeah, she really was one of those people who like to give and to receive a bit of love and care. She bandaged men at the docks. She served tea to those who were waiting for the hospital ships that were heading back to Turkey. And sometimes she ventured even onto the battlefield to treat the walking wounded. She was also often on hand with remedies for those who had bad stomachs or illnesses that didn't really need hospital treatment. She wasn't a nursing pioneer,

as you said, like Florence Nightingale, who reformed the profession, but she was really doing hands-on actual nursing. She's running a business and nursing is sort of what she does in her spare time. She's making her money from the officers, Nathan. The business model is charging the officers good prices for champagne and good food, and then in the spare time, helping out with the general soldiers i've got a just this lovely image of her like just just like wandering onto the battlefield going guys time out i know you guys are fighting but i've got some tea you want tea she used to wear a very bright yellow dress so it's not as if she was camouflaged in the middle of battle you'd see her coming for

a long way off but she would also be serving tourists. So tourists actually travelled to the Crimea to watch a war. What? Yeah, they would sit on a hill called Cathcart's Hill and they would watch battles happen. And they'd have their picnic and their sandwiches. And so Mary Seacole would come and bring them their food. Who on earth is travelling to... I mean, OK, credit to the travel agent who sold that package.

Who's travelling to a war? What did you do for your summer holidays? I went and watched the war. It was great. It also happened in the American Civil War, and it was very popular to go out to all those battlefields and bring your picnic lunch and bring the children to watch people shooting at each other and having bayonets and things.

So it makes you wonder if the 19th century was just one of those things where kind of like Roman gladiators, you know, they like to sit back and watch the show. It's extraordinary now, isn't it, if you think about it. But the Crimean War is quite a weird war, Nathan. I mean, it's chaotic. And in the middle of it is this middle-aged widow from Jamaica with presumably a Caribbean accent, accent serving tea making bangers and mash uh you know entertaining the troops she's you know she's warm and fun do you want to guess what the troops call her mommy seagull yeah mother seagull yeah there you go oh cool mother seagull or auntie seagull as well sometimes after a little while she starts appearing in newspapers and magazines and journals back in the UK.

William Howard Russell, first ever war correspondent, met her a few times and wrote in the Times that Mary was a warm and successful physician who doctors and cures all manner of men with extraordinary success. She is always in attendance near the battlefield to aid the wounded and has earned many a poor fellow's blessing. So she's getting right up in the times which is pretty good. We're going to quickly show you just an image Nathan this is one of the first images that we get of Mary Seacole in British journalism this is her in Punch magazine. Nathan do you want to describe this image for us? It looks like I'm guessing that that is Mary Seacole and she's looking after an injured soldier who's lying in a bed. And she's, is that at a magazine or something? Yeah, she's holding a copy of Punch Magazine.

Yeah. Ah, okay. Which was, I guess that's what she's given out to the soldiers to read while they're in bed. Yeah, and this cartoon is published in Punch Magazine. So basically they've used it as a branding exercise to say Mary Seacole supports Punch Magazine. But you can see there, she's wearing that cape. She's sort of got a bonnet up over Mary C. Carl supports Punch Magazine. But you can see there she's wearing that cape. She's sort of got a bonnet up over her head. It's quite a distinctive look. It's a superhero look. People are starting to think of her as a Crimean heroine. We've talked

about the Crimean War as being shambolic and so on, but gradually the British do get their act together. In 1856, Sevastopol, this Russian-held city, does fall. The Russians are defeated. And Mary's the first woman into the city. She has a bet with some French soldiers and she races in to be the first woman in. It's absolutely decimated, burning rubble and so on. soldiers who aren't being shot at anymore so they're happy and they've got money and they're buying stuff off her and the war is sort of over but the negotiations for the peace treaty are happening then the war really is over and the soldiers go home what do you think this means for mary seacole nathan i would say that means that maybe she moves to london to you know now that she's got a following there and everyone's like oh who's this mother seacole she goes there and then she continues doing what she was doing in Crimea in the UK. That's a great guess. Unfortunately, she has a slight money worry. Gretchen,

she's ruined by the Crimean War, isn't she? A lot of the British soldiers left the Crimea and they had all these unpaid debts to her that she could no longer collect. And she had invested a lot of money in luxurious stocks that she couldn't sell. And she didn't want the Russians to have it. So she was one of the last to leave Crimea. And it took her months to get home. She was declared bankrupt by a London court because of all the debts she'd had to incur taking care of all these men. So she'd had all these guys in her hotel, and women too, and she'd been selling them champagne and food and bangers and mash,

but she'd been too nice to ask for them to pay, been doing IOUs and whatever, and then they were all like, Bye, Mary, thanks so much! Bye, bye, bye! And she just didn't have the cash. So, yeah, she gets home months later and she's bankrupted, she and Thomas Day. She spent so much time with British people

that she developed British mannerisms and was too polite to ask. But she is a celebrity now. She is a war hero and she does get back on her feet. How do you think this happens, Nathan? Okay, I'm going to just guess off history that another war broke out and she went there. It worked once, let's do it again. Actually, a really, really good guess. Not the answer I was looking for, but there is the Indian Rebellion of 1857,

which she tries to go and join. This doesn't quite work out. No, there's a big fundraiser for her. There's a crowdfunder and everyone's like, hey, Mary Seacole. She's cool. Let's help her out. Gretchen, can we hear some more about this surge of popular support? She was already known because of the British press. And then they reported her financial

troubles and a fund was set up. A poem was composed in her honor called A Stir for Seacole, set to the tune of Old King Cole. From 27 July to 30 July 1857, there was the Seacold Fund Grand Military Festival, a fundraiser that coincided with the launch of her memoir, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacold and Many Lands. More than 1,000 artists performed, including 11 military bands and an orchestra, and 40,000 people paid to attend it. 40,000 punters paid to come to this big Mary Seacole Fund Grand Military Festival. 1,000 artists, 11 military bands and an orchestra. How much money do you think she makes from this? First of all, that is a great gig.

I would love to be booked on that. I'm guessing in that time, like, it would be, let's say, 10,000, which is probably like close to a million in today's day and age you think she she earns a ton of cash i would hope so given everything that she's done you would hope you're going to tell me that it was like she got two quid and a packet of crisps 57 pounds is what she gets out of it The people who are running it are either corrupt or chaotic in their business dealings. And months and months and months go on and she's still not been paid a penny.

And eventually she gets 57 quid. So it's pretty bad, isn't it? But as Gretchen mentioned, the memoir sells quite well. The first run sells out, it gets reprinted, which is pretty good. So the festival is sort of like the fire festival of the 1850s. It's a sort of... Sounds glamorous, but unfortunately, everyone gets screwed. But the memoir is called The

Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. It's a great book. You can read it for free online. I mean, what's your autobiography going to be called, Nathan? Probably like The Professional Disappointment. Boy who could have been a successful architect and chose to be a clown. That sounds more like a novel. I like that. That's nice.

Mary C. Cole and Florence Nightingale are the two celebrity nurses that come out of the war. And they're really different in their reaction to fame. Florence Nightingale hates being famous because she's an aristocrat. She's posh. She thinks it's vulgar and crass and beneath her. How do you think Mary reacts, Nathan?

I think she lapped it up. I think she would have been like the Usain Bolt of her generation and just like a natural star in the public. Spot on. I think she loves being famous. She loves being celebrated. I think also, Gretchen, is it fair to say she likes being accepted? She's a woman from the edge of empire.

She's a woman of colour. And she has been welcomed into the bosom of the empire. That's a great way to put it. First of all, she's had the biggest book launch I've ever heard of, 40,000 people. But yes, I think she loved it. She got a lot of new patrons, and they included Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Duke of Cambridge, and a lot of senior military officers. The fund just kept growing. And Mary was able to buy land in Kingston near New Blundell Hall,

where she built herself a bungalow and larger property that she rented out because it was another business opportunity. She's always running businesses, that woman. There's a lot of her life that happens after the crimean but you know this is where she sort of enjoys being famous a bit there's also a painting of her nathan that's it's quite a famous painting where she's seen wearing medals one french one british one turkish maybe and we're not quite sure where she gets them from so again again with historians not having enough evidence sometimes we don't know if she was like given them by the turkish government or the french government or if she just sort of thought well i deserve

these i'm gonna wear them so there's four soldiers who will walk around going has anyone seen my last my last has anyone seen it guys i don't know yeah i mean i suspect that she probably was gifted them but maybe we don't have the record but yeah this is something the historians have argued about quite a lot we've kind of gone hang on a minute there's no paperwork she's you know quite proudly wearing them in her paintings but fair enough she's done a lot of stuff she does have these high-flying supporters and certainly by 1867 she has to go back to the seacole fund for a second time and this time she does get a bit more money off it. Queen Victoria is a supporter. But again, 1870, there's a new war that kicks off, Mary's 65. It's the Franco-Prussian War. So the Prussians have invaded France. And again, she's like, I can help. I'm around. I've got

experience. It doesn't quite work out. So what do we know about the end of Mary's life, Gretchen? Is she comfortable? Well, she's back in London, and this does actually have a happy ending. In the last years of her life, she was a royal favourite. She may have been the personal masseuse of the Princess of Wales, Alexandra, who suffered with white leg and rheumatism. Mary died a comfortably rich woman in 1881 at her house in Paddington, age 76. That's quite rare for us on this podcast, Nathan. We quite often have these sort of extraordinary people whose life is glamorous and fun and important,

and then they end up dying in poverty and forgotten. But here we have a woman who is hobnobbing with princesses and dies in her fancy house with some cash in the bank. You kind of feel like she kind of deserves it. You know, after everything she's done, it's like, OK, she went out smiling. You know what I mean? How do you feel about Mary now? You've heard everything, Nathan, in terms of her life. What's your takeaway?

I still think she's like everyone's mum. Someone that you can't hate her. She's warm. She's caring. You can't help but just warm to her. Mary Seacole is one of my favorite people from history because by the sound of it she was just a big warm smiley fun slightly pushy woman who just appeared in your house and went hello i'm here to make things better we could do

more of that now so uh yeah i'm a big fan of hers i think she's great the nuance window The Nuance Window! That brings us to the Nuance Window. This is where we allow our expert, Professor Gretchen, to have two minutes to tell us anything that we need to know related to today's episode. So Nathan and I will pull up a pew in the British Hotel. We'll have some bangers and mash. We'll drink some champagne. And so, Gretchen, you have two minutes. Without much further ado,

the nuance window, please. You know, what fascinates me about her is not just the story and the way she wrote it, because of course, people can say whatever they want in their memoirs. But the fact that her reputation has lasted, and that we're still talking about her now, she's been taken up, she's studied in universities. She has buildings named after her. The health center at Brunel University is the Mary Seacole Health Center in London. The building where she lived is sadly no longer there, but it is known and we can find and she has become a kind of beacon for people who want to think about what a black woman could be or a mixed race woman could be at that time. And despite all of the challenges she faced in terms of race, in terms of money, in terms of profession, that she seemed to ultimately overcome them all. And she's been taken as a kind of role model for so many of us now. And it's well-deserved and it's kind of exciting to see that we don't have to go past that time to say, ah, this may be a turning point in the way Black women might've been seen in Britain by just the example that she had and how much the

press wrote about her. So I'm wonderful. I think that we're still talking about her today is terrific. Thank you so much. Nathan, any thoughts on that? I didn't know that she was on stamps. I didn't. But then I probably figured it's probably because I haven't sent a letter in like two decades. So stamps, what are they? We've got Mary Seacole. That's what I'll say. So what do you know now? So let's now see how much of this life our comedian Nathan Caton can remember.

It's time for the quickfire quiz. So what do you know now? Nathan, last time out, you got 10 out of 10 in your quiz. You nailed it on Notting Hill. So how are you feeling with the Mary Seacole quiz? Are you confident? Oh, no, I'm not confident at all.

What was her name again? You've forgotten it. Okay, here we go. Question one. Mary Seacole was born in 1805, but what was her maiden name? Mary Grant. It was Mary Grant. Yes.

Question two. Mary Seacole acquired nursing skills at her mother's boarding house in Jamaica. What was it called? The boarding house was called Blundell House. Yeah, Blundell Hall. Yeah, I'll let you have that. Question three. According to Seacole's autobiography, as a child, she practiced her nursing skills on what guinea pigs?

Oh, her toys. She practiced on her dolls. Yeah, it was. Her Oh, her toys. She practised on her dolls. Yeah, it was, yeah. Her dolls, her cats and dogs. Yes. Question four. Who did Mary Seacole marry? She married Edwin Horatio Seacole.

Very good. Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole. Question five. In 1850, Seacole nursed patients during an epidemic of which disease, which she later contracted herself? The disease in question is cholera. It is cholera. Question six.

Mary Seacole travelled to which country to help her half-brother open a general store and hotel? She travelled to Panama. It was Panama. You're doing very well. Question seven. Mary Seacole raised her own funds and travelled to which war to open a supply canteen and care for soldiers? Oh, she travelled to the Crimean War. Yes, Crimean War. Question eight. What was the name of Seacole's driftwood shack set up in the Crimea

with the help of the Turkish Pasha and his men? The British Hotel or British Hotel 2.0 reboot. It was. Question nine. Seacole was in great financial difficulty when she returned to England after Crimea. How many people paid to go to her fundraising concert in 1857? Oh, I remember this because I'm jealous. 40,000 people paid for her event. And this for a perfect run.

What is the name of Mary Seacole's autobiography? Oh, he's fallen at the last hurdle. Any other words coming back to you? And times of Mary Seacole. I'm afraid not. It's The Wonderful Adventures

of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. So, nine out of ten. Well done. That's a very strong score but yeah you didn't quite get it at the end there full last hurdle another great name for your autobiography nathan sorry i mean and thank you to gretchen for informing you with all that lovely knowledge

and listeners if you need more nathan in your life then dig out our episode on notting hill carnival if you want to learn more about health, of course, in the past, you can check out our episode on ancient Greek and Roman medicine. And remember, if you've had a laugh and if you've learned some stuff, please do share the podcast with your friends, leave a review online, subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. So all that's left really for me to do is say a big thank you to my guests in History Corner. We've had the exceptional Professor Gretchen Gazina from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Thank you, Gretchen. Thank you, Greg. It was really, really

fun. And in Comedy Corner, we've had the brilliant Nathan Caton. Cheers, Nathan. Thank you for having me, and I apologise again for that last question. It's going to bug me. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we give another historical subject the You're Dead to Me treatment. But for now, I'm off to go and practice podcasting on my daughter's dolls.

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