Mary Seacole
nurse/healer/Entrepreneur
Seacole is famous for helping sick and wounded soldiers during the Crimean war, she was an accomplished herbalist and a business woman. Seacole was born in Kingston Jamaica in 1805 to a Scottish mother and Jamaican father.
She travelled to the war office in London to offer her nursing services during the Crimean War (1853 to 1856) but was turned down, she was also refused funding to travel to Crimea. Seacole didn't let that stop her. She funded her own travel to the Crimea taking where she built and ran her boarding house called The British Hotel. She was dedicated to helping the sick and wounded and was affectionately called 'Mother Seacole'. After the war Seacole returned to London destitute. Soldiers who she’d treated and those who knew of her work organised a charity event to raise money on her behalf.
Seacole wrote a book about her life in 1857 called The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands.
Dr Harold Moody
Doctor / Civil Rights Activist
Dr Moody was a Doctor and Civil Rights Activist, he was born in Kingston Jamaica in 1882. He travelled to the UK in 1904 to study medicine at Kings College London finishing top of his class. Dr Moody went on to work at The Royal Eye Hospital in London. However, when he was subsequently refused work due to racism Dr Moody started his own medical practice in Peckham South London in 1913.
He also advocated on behalf of people who needed help and was a well respected community leader. In 1931 Dr Moody founded The League of Coloured People,Britain’s first civil rights organisation. The group campaigned against racism, for racial equality and civil rights.
In March 2019 a plaque in Dr Moody's honour was unveiled at the Central YMCA London to commemorate the 88th year of the organisations he founded.
Africanus Horton
SURGEON/Nationalist/ Author
Horton was a surgeon, scientist, soldier, author and political thinker. He was born James Horton in 1835 in Freetown Sierra Leone, his father was from Nigerian (Igbo). In 1855 Horton received a scholarship to study medicine at Kings College London, he then went onto study in Edinburgh. Horton was appointed as a Staff Assistant Surgeon with the British Army.
Horton’s publications The Political Economy of British West Africa with the Requirements of Several Colonies and Settlements and West African Countries and Peoples challenged racist opinion held by some Europeans that Africans were physically and intellectually inferior. Horton was the first African thinker to campaign for self-governance from colonisation in West African countries.
Frederick Akbar Mahomed
Physician
Mahomed was an internationally recognised physician from Brighton in the UK. He was born in 1849 to a Bangladeshi father and English mother. Mahomed qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1872. In 1871. As a student he created a device which greatly improved the function of the sphygmograph (an instrument used to measure blood pressure). Mahomed used the device to measure blood pressure during pregnancies and to monitor scarlet fever, gout also alcohol and lead poisoning. He was the first to record that essential hypertension (high blood pressure) could occur without the presence of an underlying medical cause.
Annie Brewster
Nurse
Brewster was born in 1858 on the West Indian island St Vincent. She travelled to the UK with her businessman father and siblings in the 1860s – the family lived in Dulwich, south London.
She became a student nurse at the London Hospital in 1881, where she was well regarded. Brewster was promoted to nurse in charge of the Ophthalmic wards looking after elderly patients – she was affectionately known as ‘Nurse Ophthalmic’.
Brewster served over 20 years at the hospital. When she passed away the Matron of the London Hospital remarked ‘She had spent the best and happiest years of her life at the London Hospital. She was with us for just over 20 years, nearly 14 of which had been spent as the nurse in charge of the Ophthalmic Wards. With her quick intelligence she became very skilful in the treatment of ‘eyes’ and her kindness to the poor old people who passed through her hands during this period was unwearied. Hospital friends mourn her loss and keep her in affectionate remembrance’.
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