Google Doodle is a moving tribute to woman voted as greatest ever black Briton
LONDON -- Google today honoured Mary Seacole, a Jamaican/Scottish nurse who nursed wounded soldiers on the battlefield during the Crimean War in the 1850s.
The Doodle features an image of Seacole wielding a lamp as she searches for wounded servicemen on the battlefield in the rain.
Seacole -- who was born in Jamaica in 1805 to a black woman and a Scottish army officer --was voted the greatest black Briton of all time in an extensive internet poll in 2004.
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"She self-funded her trip to Balaclava, Ukraine, where she nursed beleaguered and wounded British soldiers. It was Seacole, not Florence Nightingale, who contemporary newspapers hailed as the mother of British soldiers," reads a blog by Google.
Highly popular among the servicemen, Seacole was widely known to the British Army as “Mother Seacole.” Seacole fell on hard times when she returned to England after the Crimean War. The servicemen she had cared for during the war raised money for Seacole when she faced destitution and poor health.
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Following her death, Seacole was forgotten until the 1990s -- for almost a century -- but a campaign to raise public awareness of Seacole's contributions brought her story back into the national consciousness.
"She tirelessly tended to the curing and comforting of wounded soldiers coming off the battlefield and people from all walks in need," reads Google's blog post about the Doodle.
"Here’s to Mary’s legacy as an empowered healer and humanitarian, which will continue to live on and inspire," the post continues.
People have taken to social media to express their delight at Google's tribute to the nurse.
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Topics Social Good
Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
