19th Century visitors

Pre-Windrush – Black visitors came to London and the Kensington area not as a wave of immigrants but as individuals. Mary Seacole, who worked alongside Florence Nightingale in the Crimea caring for British Troops, returned to London a celebrity and lies buried today in St Mary's Cemetery, Kensal Green.

There were also individuals who did not achieve fame but still lived a life less ordinary in the borough's streets.

The many different lives of the black people who came to the borough at a time when black people were viewed as primitive and inferior make up an interesting and complex view of these times.

Voted The Greatest Black Briton, Mary Seacole was born ‘free’ in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805 to Jamaican Scottish Parents. By 12 she was assisting her ‘doctress’ mother to nurse British officer and their wives.

She travelled overseas before arriving in England to join Florence Nightingale's Angel Band of military nurses to assist in the Crimean War Effort. Rejected, she nevertheless went to the Crimea anyway and established a British hotel where she catered for the army personally of all ranks and nursed the sick and wounded. After the Crimean War, Seacole returned to London and published her autobiography "The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands", published in 1857.

Although she disappeared from view and died in London at age 76 in 1881 – her grave can be found in St Mary's Cemetery, Kensal Green.

For more information about Mary Seacole please visit www.maryseacole.com

For more information about the notable people buried in St Mary's Cemetery, please visit Notable personalities at Kensal Green Cemetry

The image of Mary Seacole above is supplied courtesy of the Amoret Tanner collection.