100 Great Black Britons
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100 Great Black Britons is a poll that was first undertaken in 2003 to vote for and celebrate the greatest Black Britons of all time. It was created in a campaign initiated by Patrick Vernon in respon
Seacole Challen
Reverend Dr. Oliver Lyseight 1920 2006
The History of A West Indian Slave, Mary Prince Front Cover
Philippa of Hainault sm
Mary Seacole
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Mary Jane Seacole was a Jamaican nurse and businesswoman. She was famous for her nursing work during the Crimean War and for publishing the first autobiography written by a woman of African descent in
100 Great Black Britons
…with a television series (2002), which featured no Black Britons in the published listing. The result of Vernon's campaign was that in February 2004 Mary Seacole was announced as having been voted the greatest Black Briton. Following the original poll, 100 Great Black Britons was re-launched in 2020 in an updated…
Seacole, c. 1850
Seacole was bankrupt on her return to London. Queen Victoria's nephew Count Gleichen (above) had become a friend of Seacole's in Crimea. He supported fund-raising efforts on her behalf.
Seacole, depicted as an admirer of Punch, along with her British Crimean War patients in "Our Own Vivandière", Punch, 30 May 1857
One of two known photographs of Seacole, taken for a carte de visite by Maull & Company in London (c. 1873)