Nurse Edith Cavell’s death at the hands of the German forces, in October 1915, attracted headlines across the world and irrevocably changed attitudes towards the conflict.
Edith was born on December 4, 1865, in the picturesque village of Swardeston, where her father, Frederick, served as the vicar of St Mary’s Church. Until her mid-teens, Edith was taught at home with her two younger sisters and here she first learnt the Christian principles of faith and duty to which she would later dedicate her life.
She subsequently trained as a student teacher in Peterborough. This enabled her to find work as a governess with some of Norfolk’s most prominent families, including the Gurneys of Keswick New Hall, until, in 1890, she decided to move abroad after being recommended for a post in Belgium. She spent the next five years working for the Francois family in Brussels and only returned home when her father became seriously ill.
Having nursed Frederick successfully back to health, Edith decided that nursing should be her vocation. She began her training at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel under its formidable matron, Eva Luckes, who was known for her progressive teaching methods.
Edith soon found herself on the front line when she was sent to assist with a deadly typhoid outbreak in Maidstone. As well as being one of those to be awarded a commemorative silver medal for her efforts by the town’s grateful residents, she also received praise for her efforts from the notoriously difficult-to-please Eva Luckes, who in her final assessment as a probationer nurse reported that ‘she did good work…in Maidstone’.
Thereafter, Edith steadily rose through the ranks culminating, in early 1907, with her first role as matron in Salford. Soon afterwards she was contacted by one of Belgium’s foremost surgeons, Dr. Antoine Depage, who also happened to be a close friend of the Francois family. He was eager to establish the country’s first nurse training school in Brussels and invited Edith to become its head.
Now in her early forties, she welcomed the opportunity to take on this exciting new role at the Berkendael Medical Institute.
Her greatest challenge came in trying to change the outdated perception that nursing was best left to the Roman Catholic nuns who had traditionally cared for patients in Belgian hospitals. Eventually public opinion shifted dramatically in her favour when the Belgian Queen, Elisabeth, broke her wrist and insisted on being treated by one of Edith’s trained nurses.
In 1914, Edith was making her annual summer trip home to Norfolk when news emerged that war had broken out in Western Europe and Germany was on the verge of invading Belgium.
Fearful for her safety, Edith’s family begged her to stay, but she left for Brussels almost immediately, declaring that: ‘At a time like this I am more needed than ever.’
As the fighting quickly escalated, thousands of wounded soldiers from both sides began to crowd into the city and the Berkendael Medical Institute was converted into a Red Cross hospital. One night, two British servicemen arrived at the hospital. With the Belgian capital now under German martial law, anyone who was caught helping the enemy risked severe punishment. Yet Edith sheltered them for two weeks and then liaised with the Belgian Underground movement to arrange their safe passage to the neutral Netherlands.
These men were just the first of many whom Edith helped to escape over the course of the next year. As the war progressed, it became increasingly difficult to communicate with her family back home in Norfolk. They did, though, become aware of her risky activities when Louisa Cavell received a letter from a grateful British serviceman whom Edith had sheltered in Brussels.
Her luck finally ran out in August 1915, when she was betrayed by Georges Gaston Quien, a Belgian collaborator who had posed as a French officer in need of her help. Edith was arrested and held in solitary confinement, where, under interrogation, she admitted to having helped nearly 200 ‘enemy’ soldiers to escape – the real figure may well have been even higher. Despite international diplomatic efforts, Edith was found guilty of treason at her subsequent court martial and, on October 11, 1915, was sentenced to death.
Edith was executed by firing squad at dawn the following morning before there was even time to make a final plea for clemency. The German authorities may well have intended her death to discourage other would-be resistance workers. Instead, her cruel fate became a byword for German brutality and an effective propaganda tool in encouraging others to join the Allied cause. ‘For obeying the dictates of heart and conscience, Miss Cavell suffered a martyr’s death’, wrote the Norfolk News in late October 1915.
Courageous and principled to the end, Edith viewed her own fate in a different light. She told her friend, the Reverend Stirling Gahan, on the eve of her execution, that she did not wish to be remembered as a heroine or martyr but simply ‘as a nurse who tried to do her duty’.
Edith’s extraordinary sacrifice has since been commemorated in memorials, not only in her native county but as far afield as Australia and Canada. Yet she herself may well have taken more satisfaction from the fact that her extraordinary example of selfless service towards others continues to inspire today..
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