Mary Seacole On New £50 Note?

[Zacs-Master]

What are your thoughts about Mary Seacole appearing on the new £50 note?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/new-50-pound-note-polymer-black-british-woman-currency-campaign-a8582466.html

Apparently the choice will be put to the public:
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/news/2018/october/bank-confirms-plans-for-new-50-note.pdf?la=en&hash=5DFBFFDB0EE60637628781155FC67F06F919722B

[jno]

how about Florence Nightingale

Been there, done that

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VT1SPKMlpI4/UKqjA7VPLrI/AAAAAAAAKlA/X3g_oCV9PF8/s640/British+10+Pounds+Sterling+note.jpg

[emmie]

ael
she was on the old ten pound note, withdrawn now..

[woofgang]

apparently it was a hotel not a brothel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Seacole

[aelmpvw]

you're right emmie and moths have just escaped from my wallet

[emmie]

which is why i provided the link, a prostitute she certainly wasn't.

[Sqad]

OK thanks....Florence Nightingale has been "noted."....;-)

[Zacs-Master]

Woof, the ‘hotel’ apparently took in only paying officers (according to one account I’ve read) not ordinary ranks and the treatements were not well documented. Other scholarly studies (Proff Lynn McDonald) Say ‘she doubtless did what she could to ease suffering, when no effective cures existed. In epidemics pre-Crimea, she said a comforting word to the dying and closed the eyes of the dead’. And that officers bailed her out when she went bankrupt.

[emmie]

remarkable woman, as i said, read about her, you will be somewhat enlightened.

[Spicerack]

I stand corrected. A hotel just behind the lines. ;-)

[woofgang]

yes ZM, she was definitely a businesswoman rather than a nurse.

[Zacs-Master]

Reading about her seems to only confuse and enigmatise her history and achievements as there are many contradictory accounts.

[Khandro]

In 2013, then-Education Minister Michael Gove made a U-turn on scrapping her from the national curriculum, prompted a string of articles painting Seacole as a mere tool of the multiculturalist agenda. “The black Florence Nightingale and the making of the PC myth: One historian explains how Mary Seacole’s story never stood up,”.

Then there’s the argument that Seacole is a symbol of political correctness gone mad because the great black British icon isn’t, er, black. In a Spectator piece Rob Liddle pointed out that Seacole was “three-quarters white”.

[tamborine]

new notes are polymer - involving tallow (animal fats). Will objectors fling them ?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bank-of-england-animal-fat-banknotes-protests-5-20-polymer-notes-peta-vegan-complaints-a7886376.html

[emmie]

tambo, yes if they fling them my way i could certainly use them, lol

[mushroom25]

if Mary Seacole might be ruled out by past controversy, why not someone whose prowess in a field related to money is acknowledged and would be appropriate?

why not Diane Abbott, mathematical genius?

[Jackdaw33]

As virtually no shops will accept £50 notes at first sight I cannot see the point of issuing them in the first place. They can portray any clown they like; there won't be one in my wallet.

[woofgang]

having had a think about this over a cup of tea, I think its important to consider two things when deciding who to put on the money. the first thing is what exactly they are being recognised for? The second is to put the person's achievement and lige in general, into the context of their time.
There seems to be some kind of assumption that she is being put forward as a black Florence Nightingale....which she doesn't seem to have been...but what if she is being recognised as a woman of mixed parentage who achieved something remarkable for her time?

[rowanwitch]

There are better women they could use, Edith Cavell for one. I think the Mary Seacole suggestion is just for the sake of diversity for diversity sake.

[tamborine]

Amy Johnson a true inspiration to women

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Johnson

[Spicerack]

Back in the 1980's 'everyone' got paid in £50s and they were common currency. Don't really see them so much now. I did hear it was something to do with forgeries.