Portrait of Mary Seacole. - Contributed Photo
LONDON (JIS):
A major landmark in Salford, England, has been dedicated to Jamaican nursing icon, Mary Seacole.
The £22 million building at the University of Salford in Greater Manchester, committed to inter-professional teaching and research in United Kingdom health and social care, was opened by British Paralympic champion, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, recently.
Grey-Thompson, who officially unveiled a plaque commemorating the launch of the centre for health and social care teaching and re-search, and the life of the black Crimean war nurse .
The five-storey glass structure is part of a planned investment of over £130 million by the University of Salford in campus buildings and facilities over the next five years.
Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Care, Rona Howard, said the building represented the pioneering spirit of Mary Seacole.
Seacole gained greater recognition in 2004 when she was voted the Greatest Black Briton in an on-line poll. In January this year - the bicentenary of her birth - the only known portrait of her was discovered and exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery. This month she will be among 10 Britons to be honoured in a new series of Royal Mail stamps, which will commemorate the National Portrait Gallery's 150th anniversary.
