Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for
Education, recently announced an overhaul of the history curriculum (of England, Wales and Northern Ireland) to
concentrate on traditional historical figures such as Oliver Cromwell and
Winston Churchill and to remove figures deemed to be less important, such as
the Crimean War nurse, Mary Seacole.
A motley collection of historians have
weighed into the debate in support of Gove, denigrating Seacole and plans to
erect a statue in her memory. The Daily Mail talks about ‘The Making of a PC Myth’. On the other side of the argument a group of MPs have just tabled a motion to
retain her in the curriculum, and publications like the Guardian and The Voice
have been articulate in her defense.
One depressing element of the debate is that
it often sets up an argument of Nightingale versus Seacole. as if there were
only room in the historical pantheon for one nurse, or only enough bronze for
one statue, and it sets me wondering about who history is for, and the complex
and subjective mechanics by which some get remembered and many forgotten.
For those of you unfamiliar with her name,
Mary Seacole was woman of Jamaican/Scottish origin who, after tending the sick
in Panama, paid her own way to the Crimea, where she set up a ‘British Hotel’
with food and drink and a clinic for soldiers. She also tended the wounded on
the battlefields, sometimes under fire. So popular was she among the military,
that when she returned to Britain bankrupt, a three day fundraising concert was
set up in her honour which 80,000 people attended and Queen Victoria supported.
The press of the time lauded her, and she wore a Crimea Medal given to her by
the military. By the time Mary Seacole died in the late 19th
century, her celebrity had faded to obscurity. It is only the last few decades
that her story has been rediscovered and circulated. She is the only black figure on the school curriculum not
associated with slavery or the Civil Rights movement.
Not only is it harder for women and
minorities to make an impact in a world they do not rule, but even those who
have made an impact find it hard to stay in the public eye, their reputations
subject to a constant whittling and belittling. Seacole is not truly
‘important’, say Gove’s supporters.
Important to who? She was important enough
to the soldiers she cared for that they wanted to commemorate her. Vitally, she shows the historical diversity of Britain, a diversity that some make out
happened only in the last few decades. She also stands for the revelation that
a black women in the nineteenth century could be wealthy and autonomous enough
to dispense charity and care.
If we don’t see ourselves reflected in our history,
we absorb the subliminal message that people like us achieve little.
When Gove picks out Oliver Cromwell and
Churchill as examples of who is important, he is a male parliamentarian
singling out other male parliamentarians, he is mirroring himself to some
degree. Not to belittle anything Churchill or Cromwell may have achieved (and
Cromwell achieved much bloody slaughter alongside his honours), but I have a problem
with this notion of ‘importance’, as if it is something we can measure
objectively.
A man born into wealth and privilege who
enters politics and enacts legislation which effects the lives of millions may
be doing something important, but he not doing anything exceptional. And as for
the kings and queens who Gove is so keen for children to learn the names of,
they may have exercised immense power, but that power came to them through the
accident of birth or arranged marriage.
I am more interested in people from more modest backgrounds who confounded expectations and had an impact on their times
through the exercise of their innate values and talents. Florence Nightingale
was one such woman. Mary Seacole another. We need both in full view.
If you feel that Mary Seacole deserves to keep her place on the National Curriculum, you can sign an online petition here
