Mary Seacole, like Florence Nightingale, worked in the Crimea. Unlike Florence Nightingale, she rarely gets much credit for it.
But yesterday, at a ceremony to celebrate the contribution of the black community to British History, she was named as the greatest Black British woman. She was born in Jamaica, and like her mother before her - became a Doctress - a Caribbean nurse on the slave plantations and amongst the military in the West Indies.
When the British authorities refused to employ her during the Crimean war, she made her own way to the front line, eventually being awarded a Crimean medal for her work.
Claudia Hammond spoke to her biographers Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee.
