5 Pounds - Charles III Mary Seacole

Mary Seacole was born in Jamaica in 1805 and funded her own passage to Crimea after the British War Office refused her application to serve as an army nurse — a rejection widely attributed to racial prejudice. She established the "British Hotel" near Balaclava, providing food, supplies, and medical care to wounded soldiers at her own expense. She died nearly destitute in 1881.

This coin was issued as part of the Royal Mint's ongoing series honoring figures absent from mainstream British commemorative coinage for most of the 20th century. Seacole ranked first in a 2004 poll of Great Black Britons.