"In memory of our brave, heroic, never to be forgotten Miss Cavell. Life's race well run, life's work well done. Life's crown well won, now comes rest."

Queen Alexandra, Edward VII's widow

Edith Louisa Cavell (1865 – 1915) was a British nurse and pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium. She is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German occupied Belgium during the First World War, for which she was arrested. She was accused of treason, found guilty by a court-martial and sentenced to death.

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Edith Cavell was the matron at Saint-Gilles Hospital, Brussels. In November 1914, after the German occupation of Brussels, Cavell began sheltering British soldiers and funnelling them out of occupied Belgium to the neutral Netherlands. Wounded British and French soldiers as well as Belgian and French civilians of military age were hidden from the Germans and provided with false papers, money and guides to reach the Dutch frontier. This placed Cavell in violation of German military law. German authorities became increasingly suspicious of the nurse's actions, which were further fuelled by her outspokenness.

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She was arrested on 3 August 1915 and charged with harbouring Allied soldiers. She had been betrayed by Georges Gaston Quien, who was later convicted by a French court as a collaborator. Cavell admitted that she had been instrumental in conveying about 60 British and 15 French soldiers, as well as about 100 French and Belgian civilians of military age, to the frontier and had sheltered most of them in her house.

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The penalty, according to German military law, was death. Despite international pressure for mercy, she was shot by a German firing squad. Although her execution was legal under international law, it caused outrage in Britain and in many neutral countries, such as the United States. She became a symbol of the Allied cause, and her memory was invoked in recruitment posters and messages in Britain and around the world.

The night before her execution, she said,

"Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."

 These words were later inscribed on a memorial to her near Trafalgar Square.

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"I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved."

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 "I have no fear or shrinking; I have seen death so often it is not strange, or fearful to me!"

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Edith Cavell was burried next to Saint-Gilles Prison. After the war, her body was exhumed and escorted to Britain. A memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, and she was reburied in Norwich Cathedral.

Source: Wikipedia / Imperial War Museum

Memorial to Cavell outside Norwich Cathedral

A propaganda stamp issued after Cavell's death

Cavell (centre) with a group of multinational student nurses whom she trained in Brussels