Richard Wilson, a West London artist who specialises in mural artworks and is based in Excelsior Studios in Park Royal, to paint a life-size portrait of Mary Seacole. 

Mary was a British-Jamaican nurse, healer and businesswoman who set up the “British Hotel” behind the lines during the Crimean War.

The hotel provided comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers and provided succour for wounded service men on the battlefield. Coming from a tradition of Jamaican and West African “doctresses”, Seacole displayed “compassion, skills and bravery while nursing soldiers during the Crimean War”, through the use of herbal remedies.

Schools of nursing in England were only set up after the Crimean war, the first being the Florence Nightingale Training School, in 1860 at St Thomas’ Hospital in London where Mary was believed to be the first nurse practitioner. Mary was born in 1805, and after her death in 1881 she was largely forgotten for almost a century but has been subsequently recognised for her success as a woman. She was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1991 and in 2004, she was voted the greatest black Briton.

City & Docklands commissioned this piece of art honouring Mary and her achievements, which sits within One West Point in North Acton. Mary is also honoured by the Mary Seacole Gardens, on small park on the Grand Union Canal with the Old Oak Common regeneration area.

Watch the creation of the Mary Seacole portrait here: A portrait of Mary Seacole – YouTube