Mary Seacole to Be Honoured With Stamp

Jamaican icon, Mary Seacole, will be among 10 Britons to be honoured in a new series of Royal Mail stamps to be issued this summer.
The stamps, which will commemorate the National Portrait Gallery’s 150th anniversary, will also feature William Shakespeare, Virginia Wolf, Winston Churchill, and T.S. Elliot.
The only known portrait of the Jamaican born nurse went on display at the National Portrait Gallery in February last year, after not being seen for several decades.
This artwork dates from around 1869 and was painted by London artist, Albert Challen. It shows an older Seacole wearing a red neckerchief and the three medals, which she was awarded for service in the Crimean War. There is no other known painted portrait of Seacole, who died in 1881 in her London home.
Mary Seacole was voted the greatest black Briton in 2004, and 2005 marked the bicentenary of her birth. A campaign to erect a statue in her honour in central London has also been launched.