‪Probably just as remarkable as Florence Nightingale, Mary Grant (who later become Mary Seacole, 1805-1881) was born in Kingston, Jamaica. She was of Scottish and Creole descent. Her father was in the British army, so she was well aware of the nature of fighting and battle. Her mother was a traditional healer. Being able to 'make a difference' was even tougher for someone from such a background. She set up a 'British Hotel' behind the lines during the Crimean War, which she said was "a mess-table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers," and comforted wounded servicemen on the battlefield. In 2004 she was voted the greatest Black Briton.

Mary Seacole learned her skills in helping the sick from knowledge of herbal medicine. Like Florence, she also found out about the terrible conditions of the Crimean War from the news reports. She applied to the War Office with the intention of going out to help, but, like Florence, she was refused permission. Not to be thwarted by bureaucrats, she decided to go anyway, and found the money for her passage. When she got to the Crimea, she set up her hotel for the battlefield wounded. She was very popular with the troops, in part for her determination and courage at going to the war zone. She also showed that she was able to overcome racial prejudice.

Seacole was proud of her Scottish ancestry and called herself a Creole, which meant a child of a white settler. As she said, "I am a Creole, and have good Scots blood coursing through my veins. My father was a soldier of an old Scottish family." and "I have a few shades of deeper brown upon my skin which shows me related—and I am proud of the relationship—to those poor mortals whom you once held enslaved, and whose bodies America still owns." Because she was the educated daughter of a Scottish officer, a free black woman, and who ran the best hotel in Kingston, she had a high position in Jamaican society.

She married Edwin Seacole in 1836. She treated patients in the cholera epidemic of 1850, which killed some 32,000 Jamaicans. In 1851, Seacole travelled to Panama to visit her brother. Shortly after her arrival, the town was struck by cholera. She treated as many as she could, asking the rich to pay and treating the poor for free. Seacole had read newspaper reports of the outbreak of war against Russia, and news of the escalating Crimean War reached her in Panama. She determined to travel to England to volunteer as a nurse. Because of the poor water quality, sanitary and treatment conditions, infectious diseases were rampant. The biggest killer was cholera. Even if they got back from the front, they were confronted with poorly staffed, unsanitary and overcrowded hospitals. By this time, Sidney Herbert, Secretary of State for War, had felt compelled to take action and he asked Florence Nightingale to arrange for nurses to be sent to the Crimea hospital to save lives. However, Florence Nightingale was not sending nurses without going herself.

Mary Seacole wanted to join the nurses going to the Crimea, but without success. Rather than giving up, she decided to spend her own money getting out there and funding a British Hotel near Balaclava. On her way, Seacole met a doctor who had recently left Nightingale's hospital in Scutari. He wrote her a letter of introduction to Florence.

Seacole visited Nightingale as soon as she arrived and Florence greeted her with: "What do you want, Mrs. Seacole? Anything we can do for you? If it lies in my power, I shall be very happy."

Close to the front, there were no proper building materials for her "Hotel", so she gathered waste materials and started her 'Hotel' within a mile of the British headquarters.

The new British Hotel opened in March 1855. She soon met with Alexis Soyer, a French chef who had travelled to Crimea to help improve the diet of British soldiers. He advised her to concentrate on food and drink, for that was far more needed than beds.

William Russell of The Times newspaper wrote: "...Mrs. Seacole...doctors and cures all manner of men with extraordinary success. She is always in attendance near the battle-field to aid the wounded, and has earned many a poor fellow’s blessings."

What Mary Seacole did was to sell good quality food, rather than to nurse the wounded. So she helped improve the lives of the troops that were well and so worked in parallel to the nursing of Florence Nightingale. Busy with their own work, they saw little of one another.

She was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1991.