Sculptor to immortalise Crimean nurse (From thisisoxfordshire)

Sculptor to immortalise Crimean nurse

3:04pm Friday 26th June 2009

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OXFORD sculptor Martin Jennings is celebrating after being commissioned to create a bronze statue of Crimean War heroine Mary Seacole.

The sculpture of the nurse will be put opposite Big Ben in the grounds of St Thomas’s Hospital in central London by the end of 2010 or early 2011. Mr Jennings, 51, above, from North Oxford, was commissioned to create the 10ft statue after winning a competition organised by the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal.

More than 100 artists applied and Mr Jennings was top of the shortlist of eight. The sculptor, whose other work includes a statue of Sir John Betjeman at St Pancras rail station, said: “There will be a bronze figure of Mary Seacole and the bronze disc behind will be an impression of the ground in the Crimea. Mary Seacole’s story is one of extraordinary courage in the face of racial prejudice and adversity.

“After her death in the 1880s, she was airbrushed from history but now her story is being rediscovered.”

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