This memorial sculpture, by Henry Pegram, showing Edith Cavell in her nurse's uniform was unveiled in 1918. It stands on the south-east side of Norwich Cathedral's Erpingham Gate in Tombland.
The memorial comprises a bronze bust of Edith set upon a stone pyramidal plinth which in turn stands on a square base. The plinth bears a life size carving of a soldier in high relief with his feet standing on the base. His right arm extends upwards to present a wreath, one of two, to Edith, as a representation of the men she protected and the cost to her own life, while his left arm extends backwards, his hand clasped around the barrel of his rifle which rests on the base.
The memorial, funded by public subscriptions, received Grade: II* listed building status on 5th. June 1972. (English Heritage Legacy ID: 229674).
Edith Louisa Cavell was born on the 4th. December 1865 at Swardeston, Norfolk where her father was vicar for 45 years. She was the eldest of the four children of the Rev. Frederick Cavell, (1824 to 1910) and his wife Louisa Sophia, nee Warming, (1835 to 1918). She was educated at Norwich High School for Girls, then boarding schools in Clevedon, Somerset and Peterborough.
After leaving school Edith was a governess, including for a family in Brussels from 1890 to 1895. She returned home to care for her father during a serious illness, the experience led her to become a nurse after her father's recovery. In April 1896, at the age of 30, Edith applied to become a nurse probationer at the London Hospital. She worked in various hospitals in England and as a private travelling nurse, treating patients in their homes. During 1897, Edith assisted with a typhoid outbreak in Maidstone, Kent, along with other staff she was awarded the Maidstone Medal.
In 1907, Edith was recruited by the doctor to the Belgian royal family, Dr. Antoine Depage, to be matron of a newly established nursing school, L'École Belge d'Infirmières in Ixelles, Brussels. Within a year, Edith she was training nurses for three hospitals, twenty-four schools, and thirteen kindergartens in Belgium.
When the First World War broke out, Edith was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk. She returned to Brussels, where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross. Here she would nurse and care for the injured and wounded, be they civilian's or both Allied and German soldiers.
In November 1914, after the German occupation of Brussels, Edith 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 by Prince Réginald de Croÿ at his château of Bellignies near Mons. From there, they were conducted by various guides to the houses of Edith, Louis Séverin, and others in Brussels, where their hosts would furnish them with money to reach the Dutch frontier and provide them with guides obtained through Philippe Baucq. This placed Edith in violation of German military law. German authorities became increasingly suspicious of the nurse's actions, which were further fuelled by her outspokenness.
The first two British soldiers helped by Edith were Colonel Dudley Boger and Sergeant Fred Meachin of the 1st. Cheshire Regiment. The Cheshire's were part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) which was driven south through Belgium in 1914 by the German advance. Colonel Boger, aged 49, was commanding the regiment, Sgt. Meachin was one of his NCO's. Both were wounded in the battle of Audregnies on 24th. August, Boger had been shot three times and had sustained serious wounds in his side and foot, Meachin had been hit on the head by a spent bullet.
They were treated in a German field hospital in a convent nearby and escaped a month later. They were helped by several Belgians who hid them in their homes. Eventually they arrived in disguise at the door of Edith’s clinic in the Rue de la Culture in Brussels on the evening of 1st. November with a guide, Herman Capiau. Edith hid them both in her quarters and tended to their wounds herself. They spent seventeen days in hiding with her and then she passed them on to Belgian guides to take them to the Dutch frontier. Col. Boger was captured before he got out of Brussels and spent the remainder of the war in internment. Sgt. Meachin made it out to Holland and back across the Channel, although he was initially arrested as a deserter. He returned to fight in France and received the Distinguished Conduct Medal in 1917.
Two Norfolk soldiers helped by Edith were Private R. W. 'Billy' Mapes and Sergeant David Jesse Tunmore.
Billy Mapes was from Hethersett, near Norwich and fought with the 1st. Battalion, Norfolk Regiment. He was severely wounded in the ankle and detached from his men. His slow journey to Brussels came via the same Red Cross Convent at Wiheries where Col. Boger and Sgt. Meachin had been held. Following his escape, he spent a number of months in hiding in the home of the Camus family, where he managed to stay undetected when German officials searched their store. He was then in contact with a number of Belgian agents who directed him to Edith. On reaching Brussels at the end of 1914 with a nasty ankle wound, Mapes introduced himself to staff at Edith’s Institute. Edith immediately recognised his Norfolk accent. Before Mapes left for the Dutch border as part of a group of six, Edith embraced him, kissed him on the cheek and said “Dear old Norfolk. I’d do anything to help a Norfolk man”.
Mapes’ large group remained hidden until they approached Antwerp, where they had to turn back. A second attempt, crossing into Holland near Turnhout, proved successful. He and his comrades reached England on 15th. June 1915.
David Jesse Tunmore also served in the 1st. Battalion, Norfolk Regiment. He was promoted sergeant at 19 years old, believed to be the youngest sergeant in the Army at the time. During August 1914, Tunmore’s battalion formed part of the rearguard at Mons. During this action, he became separated from his unit. With no officer's present and the senior sergeant lost, he took command of the remaining men. Wounded and completely surrounded, he lay in a stream, emerging only for air. Once captured by the Germans he was held in the Wiheries convent, along with Col. Boger, Sgt. Meachin and Pte. Billy Mapes. He managed to escape after several weeks, along with another soldier. They obtained civilian clothes in a nearby village and then met a Belgian agent at an old disused church, deep in the woods. It was this agent who told them of Edith.
They arrived in Brussels on 23rd. December 1914 and found Edith at her Institute. Tunmore quashed Edith’s reservations of him being a spy by recognising Norwich Cathedral in a photograph and speaking fondly of Norfolk. The couple were welcomed in and sheltered in a cellar behind the clinic and provided with money and passports. The pair left for the Dutch frontier shortly after but turned back just short of Antwerp. A new requirement meant that the passports were no longer of use. They then returned to the clinic and with Edith’s help in taking their photographs and bribes they made it across the frontier into Holland at the second time of asking.
Edith was eventually betrayed by Georges Gaston Quien, a Frenchman who had defected to the German side and disguised himself as an allied soldier in need of safe passage out of Belgium. He made his way to the clinic and was sent to Holland in June. Tipped off by Quien, throughout July the clinic had an increasing number of German inspections. Edith was arrested on 3rd. August 1915 and charged with harbouring Allied soldiers. Quien was later convicted by a French court martial as a collaborator and on 6th. September 1919 was sentenced to death.
Edith was held in Saint-Gilles prison for ten weeks, the last two of which were spent in solitary confinement. She made three depositions to the German police on 8th., 18th. and 22nd. August, admitting 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.
At her court-martial, she was prosecuted for aiding British and French soldiers, in addition to young Belgian men, to cross the Dutch border and eventually enter Britain. She admitted her guilt when she signed a statement the day before the trial. The penalty, according to German military law, was death.
The night before her execution, she told the Rev. H. Stirling Gahan, the Anglican chaplain of Christ Church Brussels that "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."
The governments of Britain, Spain and the United States all appealed for mercy or at least postponement of execution. Despite these efforts, on 11th. October, Baron von der Lancken, the German civil governor, allowed the execution to proceed.
Sixteen men, forming two firing squads, carried out the sentence pronounced on her and four Belgian men at the Tir National Shooting Range at Schaerbeek, at 7:00 am on 12th. October 1915. Edith was 49 years old.
On instructions from a Spanish minister, Belgian women immediately buried Edith's body next to Saint-Gilles Prison. After the war, her body was taken back to Britain for a memorial service at Westminster Abbey and then transferred to Norwich, to be laid to rest at Life's Green on the east side of Norwich Cathedral.
