Crimean War - Mary Seacole

A Jamaican nurse, one of the disputable characters of the Crimean War, Mary Jane Seacole  (Mother Seacole or Mary Grant) was excluded from the party of 38 nurses chosen by Florence Nightingale, Mary borrowed money to make the 4,000-mile journey by herself. In Balaclava she built a hotel to serve British officers, soldiers and those who travelled to Balaclava to witness the war. Her business prospered for a while but in the end of the war she was forced to auction many expensive goods at lower prices so she finally bankrupted and came back home poorer that she left it.