Mixed Race Studies

An extraordinary life: Elizabeth Anionwu

Nursing Standard
2016-10-02

Thelma Agnew, Commissioning Editor

Elizabeth Anionwu

Celebrated nurse Elizabeth Anionwu spent 9 years in care as a child, and her early life was marked by racism and the stigma of illegitimacy.  In her new book she reveals how she found her Nigerian father, and why being an ‘outsider’ made her a better nurse

Before she sat down to write her autobiography, Elizabeth Anionwu interviewed 30 friends and relatives. There were details she couldn’t remember, gaps she needed to fill.  But she also did it because she was determined that this would not be an ‘I, I, I’ memoir; she wanted other people’s perspectives.

These reflections on Professor Anionwu at different stages in her life – from the thoroughly English nursing student of the 1960s to the ‘radical health visitor’ of the 70s and today’s eminent professor and campaigner, proud of her Nigerian and Irish heritage – are peppered through Mixed Blessings from a Cambridge Union.

People who knew her 50 or 40 years ago recall a bright, politically curious young woman, who, despite her shyness, was prepared to ask difficult questions. She almost failed her health visiting course after daring to challenge a service’s dubious approach to collecting data on patient ethnicity.

The reflections also deliver one of the book’s jolting moments.  A friend, Janet, says: ‘You were doing well in nursing, but I do remember saying to my sister it’s a shame that Elizabeth will never be able to go very far in nursing because of her colour…

Read the entire article here.

Mary Seacole statue unveiled at London ceremony

Nursing Standard
2016-07-01

Alistair Kleebauer

More than 200 years after her birth and 12 years after a campaign started to recognise her achievements, a statue to nurse heroine Mary Seacole has been unveiled in London.

To applause and loud cheers the permanent memorial to Mrs Seacole was unveiled in the garden of St Thomas’ Hospital on the banks of the River Thames.

The Jamaican-born nurse set up the British Hotel near Balaclava to provide soldiers with food and care during the Crimean War…

…British Army

Mrs Seacole, who was born in 1805 and died in 1881, nursed victims of cholera outbreaks in Jamaica and Panama in the 1850s, cared for victims of a yellow fever epidemic in 1853, and supervised British Army nursing services in Jamaica.

She was named the greatest black Briton in a 2004 poll.

The Times’ Crimean War correspondent Sir William Howard Russell wrote the following words about Ms Seacole’s service during the conflict, which have been inscribed on a memorial disc at the back of the statue:

‘I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead.’…

Read the entire article here.