Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Mary Seacoll is now one of the most

famous people, probably in British history. She is taught in schools to young people.

She regularly features enlists of notable people from the past that young people are familiar

with, but there was a time when she was almost completely forgotten.

Mary Seacoll, born Mary Jane Grant in 1805 in Jamaica. She was the daughter of James Grant,

the Scottish Lieutenant in the British Army, and her mother, a mixed race Jamaican woman,

who was a healer as you'll hear. She had a fascinating career, which culminated in an extraordinary

visit to the Crimea during the Crimean War, in where she set up so-called British hotel

just behind the lines, the idea that it was a comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent

officers. But she ended up providing sucker for wounded servicemen of all ranks on and

near the battlefields of the Crimean War. She was slightly more controversial figure than

her contemporary Florence Nightingale, who was out there in an official capacity working

for the British government, and that's perhaps why her reputation faded after her death

in Paddington in London in 1881. She was 75 years old. She was very celebrated in the

final years of her life, faded across Britain and the Empire. But it took a group of activists

and a member of Parliament to resurrect her reputation in the early years of this century

and put her back on the historic landscape, and particularly into schools. She had an

extraordinary life and her talk all about it is an academic and author, Gretchen Gazzina.

She's written a book, Black England, Life Performance, a Patient in which Mary C. Cole

features prominently. So here's my conversation with Gretchen Gazzina about that extraordinary

woman who served on the battlefields of Ukraine. Enjoy.

Gretchen, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

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