MARY SEACOLE was a remarkable woman. As a 49-year-old widow, the self-taught but highly respected nurse and herbalist volunteered her services when Britain went to war in the Crimea in 1854.

After being repeatedly rebuffed, she made her own way to the front, set up a rest, refreshment and nursing post for troops near Sebastopol and also went out on to the battlefields to attend to the wounded. She won the admiration and affection of footsoldier and general alike and counted royalty among her fans. That she was a Creole from Jamaica and had to overcome enormous obstacles makes her achievements all the more astounding.

Seacole returned to London penniless, having bought supplies which she had intended to sell on to the troops only for the war to end suddenly.

An appeal was launched, supported by dukes, generals and several publications, led by The Times. In 1857 this newspaper published a letter from William Howard Russell, our legendary correspondent in the Crimea, in which he wrote: “For what does Mrs Seacole deserve a subscription? For courage, devotion, goodness of heart, public services, great losses undeservedly incurred. I have seen her go down under fire with her little store of creature comforts for our wounded men, and a more tender or skilful hand about a wound or a broken limb could not be found among our best surgeons.”

The appeal was a success and Seacole, whose late husband was a godson of Lord Nelson, also made money from her bestselling autobiography.

She was awarded medals by countries on both sides of the Crimean War. Seacole then settled into a quiet life and in 1873 began working as a masseuse for the Princess of Wales. After a short illness she died in 1881, aged 76, and her obituary appeared in The Times.

Over the decades, however, Seacole faded from memory and she was eclipsed by Florence Nightingale who became synonymous with nursing in the Crimean War.

Seacole was never forgotten in the country of her birth and thanks initially to the efforts of nurses and women’s groups in Jamaica, her recognition has grown steadily over the past 40 years, with an annual wreath-laying ceremony at her refurbished grave in northwest London, the republication of her autobiography and her being voted top of a poll of 100 Great Black Britons.

Now a campaign is being run to put up a memorial statue of Seacole in London. The appeal was launched by Lord Soley, the former West London MP, in 2003, and hopes to raise £475,000.

Lord Soley said that a brief for the statue is being prepared by the Davidson Arts Partnership and it will then go out to competition. It will include a representation of Seacole and also show her journey and achievements.

The two possible sites are the grounds of St Thomas’s Hospital, London, where it would be close to the Florence Nightingale Museum or opposite the Royal College of Nursing in SW1.

Tomorrow Lord Soley is hosting a reception at the House of Lords at which extracts of Seacole’s autobiography and Russell’s tributes will be read. The guests will include Sylvia Denton, president of the RCN, and others who may be willing to make contributions or help with fundraising.

Professor Elizabeth Anionwu, co-vice-chair of the appeal and head of the Mary Seacole Centre for Nursing Practice at Thames Valley University, said the memorial would ensure that Seacole’s life and work would never again be forgotten.

“A lot of people can identify with her. She was of mixed ethnic heritage (her mother was half Creole and her father a Scottish army officer), she was a woman who didn’t give up and was a very hard worker.”

Professor Anionwu said that Seacole was ahead of her time in her attitude to nursing. “She recognised the need for good sanitation, ventilation and nutrition. She had a lot of empathy; she didn’t try to dissuade the soldiers from their hallucinations in the throes of death.” She said that Seacole also took care of the soldiers’ mental wellbeing by, for instance, having a “rice pudding day” to help to assuage their homesickness.

The Crimean War Memorial erected in Central London in 1915 includes a statue of Florence Nightingale but not one for Seacole. Ninety years later, campaigners are hoping to set that right.

www.maryseacoleappeal.org.uk