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Mary Seacole

Albert Challen’s portrait of

Mary Seacole. The Royal

Academy rejected the painting in 1869, yet some

139 years later, the National Portrait Gallery was delighted to buy it

Mary Seacole’s lost letter

Tom Beaumont James recently found the only known handwritten letter by Mary Seacole. Here he explains what the missive reveals about the ‘Greatest Black Briton’

IN JULY 2008, sorting some recentlyinherited relics of my father’s family, I made a remarkable discovery. In a box containing some of his effects, I chanced upon a letter written by a woman who in 2004 was voted ‘Greatest Black Briton’: Mary Seacole.

As the only surviving letter in Seacole’s hand – and one that bears her signature – the missive is perhaps the most intimate surviving artefact relating to the Jamaican-born nurse. Mary is best known for saving numerous lives by caring for and comforting servicemen in the Crimean War. That the letter is unusual is confirmed by the fact that we know of only two others by Seacole – one to The Times and another to Punch – and both of them are printed.

BBC History Magazine

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