Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole

Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole were both important nineteenth-century figures, but Nightingale has been under attack for some 30 years, while Seacole is now being treated as "the real angel of the Crimean War".

In this lecture Dr Lynn McDonald will explain the differences between these two women and their contributions, Nightingale as nurse, public health and hospital reformer, and Seacole as doctress, businesswoman, voluntary first aid worker and author. McDonald will argue that Seacole deserves to be honoured, but should be for her own significant achievements, and not Nightingale's.

The campaign for a 3-metre high bronze statue of Seacole, at Nightingale's hospital, St Thomas', will be examined in the light of what Seacole herself claimed for her contribution, and her own description of her relationship with Nightingale, in her memoir, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands.

Dr Lynn McDonald is the director of The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, a former member of Canada's Parliament, and former president of Canada's largest women's organisation.