{"id":7353,"date":"2026-09-03T12:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/?p=7353"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T02:17:09","slug":"mary-seacole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/women-who-built-the-future\/mary-seacole\/","title":{"rendered":"MARY SEACOLE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>THEY WOULDN'T SEND HER TO THE CRIMEAN WAR. SO SHE PAID HER OWN WAY.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are moments when being told <strong>no<\/strong> ends a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And there are women for whom it merely changes the travel arrangements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mary Seacole was born in Jamaica in 1805.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She learned about traditional medicine and caring for the sick from her mother and developed considerable practical experience treating illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the Crimean War began, Seacole travelled to Britain hoping to offer her services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She wanted to help nurse British soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She was rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More than once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So Mary Seacole did something extraordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>She went anyway.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She financed her own journey to Crimea and, with Thomas Day, established the <strong>British Hotel<\/strong> near Balaclava, providing food, supplies and assistance to soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She also travelled out towards the fighting to provide food and medical help \u2014 sometimes while under fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The soldiers came to know her affectionately as <strong>Mother Seacole<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When the war ended, however, her business failed and she returned to Britain in serious financial difficulty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Supporters subsequently organised fundraising efforts for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, in 1857, she published her autobiography, <em>Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her story is not simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">History rarely is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But there is one part that deserves remembering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mary Seacole asked to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The authorities said no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>She found another way to get there.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Women Who Built the Future \u2014 Steampunk Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Leading to the launch of <strong>Wrinkles in the Fabric with Dr Kathryn Spurling<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes the women who change history are the ones who refuse to wait for permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The National Army Museum records Seacole's rejection, her self-funded journey to Crimea and her work supplying and assisting soldiers close to the fighting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rejected. Went anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-women-who-built-the-future"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7355,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7353\/revisions\/7355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steampunk.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}