Mary Seacole - Jane Robinson

The Times described her as a heroine, Queen Victoria's nephew

called her 'Mammy', while the soldiers she tended in the

Crimea referred to her with affection as 'Mother Seacole' or

'the old soul'. To Palmerstone she was a treasure of the British

Army. All this was not music to the ears of Florence

Nightingale, who rudely dubbed her a brothel-keeping quack.

Robinson's fascinating biography of the Jamaican-born

doctress, who established the 'British Hotel' just behind the

lines in the Crimea, reveals Seacole as one of the most eccentric

and charismatic women of her era.