The Edith Cavell Memorial outside Trafalgar Square, next to the first headquarters of the British Red Cross, commemorates the British nurse who got executed for helping allied soldiers escape German-occupied Belgium during World War I.
Edith Louisa Cavell (1865-1915) was born in Swardeston, England. After caring for her sick father, she decided to become a nurse, and at 31, she enrolled at the London Hospital school of nursing. For the next decade, Cavell worked in various hospitals in London; in 1907, Cavell became the matron of the Berkendael Medical Institute, a nurse training school in Brussels, Belgium. There, she helped to transform nursing into a respectable profession.
Within a few years of her arrival, she led nurse training programs in three hospitals, twenty-four schools, and thirteen kindergartens. When Germany invaded Belgium during WWI, the school transformed into a hospital for wounded soldiers. In addition to taking care of patients from both sides, she and her crew helped about 200 Allied soldiers to escape the country.
On August 5th, 1915, the Germans arrested Cavell. After nine weeks of solitary confinement, she was found guilty of treason, and on October 12th, 1915, she was executed by a firing squad. She was 50 years old at the time. When she was informed that she would be executed, she said, “Patriotism is not enough; I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone.” At first, the inscription on the pedestal reads: “Edith Cavell; Brussels; Dawn; October 12th, 1915,” and in 1924, following the National Council of Women’s request, her last words were added as well.
Cavell was seen as a martyr, and after the war, her remains returned to Britain in May 1919, where she had a state funeral. In the beginning, her story was used to tell of the cruelty of the German Nazis. Later the Cavel Nurses Trust was founded and named after her, commemorating her true legacy.
A committee led by the city of London leaders managed the fundraising for the memorial in Cavell’s honor and chose the sculptor George Frampton to create it, and he declined to receive a fee for this work. The statue was unveiled on March 17th, 1920, by Queen Alexandra.
In the 10 feet Carrara marble statue, Cavell is depicted standing tall wearing her nurse uniform. The statue is incorporated into a 40 feet Cornish granite column carved with the Geneva cross of nursing and a statue of a mother protecting her child, comparing England to a mother who protects little Belgium. Each of the four sides of the granite bears an inscription – Humanity, Fortitude, Devotion, and Sacrifice. At the back side of the column, there is a British lion crushing a serpent, and above it are the words “Faithful until death.”
Within walking distance of the memorial, there are many recommended sites to visit, including the National Portrait Gallery, Trafalgar Square, the Women of World War II memorial in Whitehall, the Florence Nightingale statue in Waterloo Place, and the Mother and Child statue at St. James’s Square garden.
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