A History of Britain 13. Victoria and her Sisters (19 of 29)

A History of Britain

Largely self-taught, her Caribbean remedies became famous after they'd been shown to stop violent dysentery and to bring yellow fever and cholera victims back from death's door.
When Britain joined the Crimean War in 1854, she tried to volunteer her services at the front.
But Mary didn't exactly fit the profile of middle-class nurses.
She was turned down by the likes of Nurse Nightingale.
So Mary got herself to the Crimea under her own steam and with her own funds.
And once there, she did something truly extraordinary.
Mary Seacole built her "British Hotel" right on the front line, and it doubled both as a refectory, feeding the boys going into action, and a recovery station for the sick and wounded.

Every morning, she'd make great vats of nutritious food, like rice pudding, saddle up a pair of mules and ride into the heart of the action looking for wounded, to whom she'd dole out food, hot tea, medicine, but most of all, motherly love.
Mortars would whiz past the big old woman trundling along the lines.
Upon these occasions, those around would cry out.
"Lie down, Mother, lie down!"
And with very undignified and unladylike haste, I had to embrace the earth.
After the war was over, the soldiers fred her at a charity gala.
She'd become, briefly, an "Eminent Victorian".
Suppose, though, that women drawn to help the sick went one stage further and dreamed of being a doctor?
That was a different story.