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Eliza Lusher

Many people know of Britain’s Florence Nightingale and Jamaica’s Mary Seacole ACTIVITY
who nursed wounded British soldiers in the Crimean War. 1. Research the causes of yellow

But did you know that Bermuda had its own “Lady with the Lamp” who nursed fever and why it had such a
victims of yellow fever – and applied for funds to join the nurses in the Crimea? devastating effect.
Eliza Lusher’s story is one of bravery and tragedy – she nursed people with a
highly contagious disease and probably died of it herself. Yet despite the support 2. Imagine you were a nurse in
of powerful people, she did not get financial help when she asked for it. the 1850s. What treatments and
medical equipment would you
Eliza Lusher was born a slave in 1819 and married John Henry Lusher in 1837. have compared to today? Name
They had two daughters but Lusher died in 1852.
one major change in medical
In 1853, when Bermuda was hit by an outbreak of yellow fever, Eliza went to the care between 1850 and now.
Dockyard and nursed the sick soldiers and sailors there. One of the patients, a
Colonel, promised she would be paid for her work, but died before he could make
good on his promise.

Two years later, after war between Britain and Russia broke out, she petitioned the
British government to allow her to serve in the Crimea. The governor of the day,
Colonel Murray, supported her request, stating: “This woman was very useful in
attending the sick soldiers during the prevalence of yellow fever in this Colony in
1853 and bears an excellent character. She is most anxious that Government should
furnish her with a passage to Turkey for this purpose and from what I can learn of
her I believe her services would be extremely serviceable in such a capacity.”

The British government replied the following month, declining her request,
without explanation.
In 1856, yellow fever broke out again, and over several months Eliza Lusher
nursed 85 people who had come down with the disease, treating them with her
own medicines and supplies when they could not afford their own. Most of them
recovered but many were poor and unable to pay her for her services.

She later presented a petition for financial assistance to Parliament, and explained
that because she had been seriously ill herself, she was unable to apply for
compensation earlier. However, in August, 1858, MPs turned down her petition by
a vote of 13 to five.

Eliza Lusher died a year later, aged just 40. The cause of her death was unknown, but
her exposure to yellow fever and the reference in her petition to becoming “seriously
and dangerously ill” suggest that she may have contracted the disease herself.

Dockyard Looking from the Great Sound, 1856
courtesy national museum of bermuda Watercolour on paper
(detail)
By Edmund Gilling Hallewell

A view of Dockyard in 1856, the year Eliza
Lusher was nursing people with yellow fever.

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