Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Cavell, Edith
CAVELL, EDITH (1865-1915), nurse, was born at Swardeston, Norfolk, 4 December 1865, the eldest daughter of the Rev. Frederick Cavell, vicar of Swardeston, by his wife, Louisa Sophia Walming. She was educated at home, at a school in Somerset, and in Brussels. In 1888, having inherited a small competency, she travelled on the Continent. When visiting Bavaria, she took much interest in a free hospital maintained by a Dr. Wolfenberg, and endowed it with a fund for the purchase of instruments. In 1895 she entered the London Hospital as a probationer. In 1897 she took charge of an emergency typhoid hospital at Maidstone. Having attained the position of staff nurse at the London Hospital, she engaged in poor law nursing, serving in the Highgate and Shoreditch infirmaries. Subsequently she took temporary charge of a Queen’s district nursery in Manchester. In 1906 she went to Brussels to co-operate with Dr. Depage in establishing a modern training school for nurses on the English system, the best nurses hitherto obtainable in Belgium having been sisters belonging to Catholic religious orders. Edith Cavell was appointed in 1907 the first matron of Depage’s clinic—the Berkendael medical institute—the success of which soon made it of national importance. Shortly before the European War it obtained official recognition, a new and larger building being added to it from state funds. She also organized and managed the hospital of St. Gilles. In August 1914 Dr. Depage went away to organize military hospitals, and Miss Cavell remained in charge. The German authorities gave her permission to continue her work in Brussels, the institute became a Red Cross Hospital, and she and her assistants devoted themselves to the care of the wounded, Germans as well as Allies.
When, in the latter part of 1914, the French and British forces were compelled to retire from Belgium, many soldiers from both these armies were cut off from their units. They hid themselves as best they could, for some, at least, of those who fell into German hands were summarily executed. But many escaped with the aid of the Belgian farmers and peasants. A regular system grew up under which these men were enabled to escape from the country. Miss Cavell was naturally one to whom those who needed aid applied; and she readily responded. Her conduct, careful as it was, aroused. suspicion. Suspicion led to espionage. On 5 August 1915 she was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in the prison of St. Gilles. Nine weeks later (7 October) she was brought to trial together with some thirty-five other prisoners. The charges against all were of a similar kind; the tribunal before which these persons, many of them women, were arraigned was a court martial; the proceedings were conducted in German, though a French interpreter was provided.
During the weeks when Miss Cavell lay in prison Mr. Brand Whitlock, the United States minister in Brussels, was active on her behalf. He wrote to Baron von Lancken, the civil governor of Belgium, stating that he had been instructed to take charge of her defence, and he asked that a representative of his legation might see her. This letter elicited no reply. When Mr. Whitlock wrote again he was told that the prisoner had already confessed her guilt, and that a M. Braun had been engaged by her friends to conduct the defence. In fact the defence was handed over to a member of the Brussels bar, M. Sadi Kirschen, who did everything possible under the circumstances. But, as the event showed, the conviction of Miss Cavell was a foregone conclusion. In accordance with the usual procedure of such courts in Germany, the prisoner was not allowed to see her advocate before the trial, nor was he granted access to the documents in the case. The allegation was that she had enabled no less than 130 persons to escape from Belgium. Merely assisting these men to escape to Holland would have constituted no more than an attempt to ‘conduct soldiers to the enemy’. Under German military law this is not a capital offence. But the confession which Miss Cavell is alleged to have signed on the day previous to the trial stated that she had actually assisted Belgians of military age to go to the front, and that she had also concealed French and English soldiers, providing them with funds and with guides whereby they had been enabled to cross the Dutch frontier.
That such a confession was made by Miss Cavell is probable enough. Nine weeks of solitary confinement, the absence of any adviser who might have insisted that she should put her accusers to the proof of their charges, the conviction that what she had done was morally right, though legally wrong—all these considerations might well have induced her to tell the full story. But for her confessions, however, the capital charge would seem not to have been sustainable. The prosecution appears to have had no evidence that she had succeeded in enabling military refugees to reach England. She stated at the trial, however, that she had received letters of thanks from those whom she had helped to repatriate. In the absence of this admission she could only have been found guilty of an attempt to conduct soldiers to the enemy. Her statement showed that her attempt had been successful. So the penalty was death. The trial ended on Friday, 8 October. At eight o’clock on the evening of the following Monday (11 October) an official of the United States Legation was told unofficially that three hours previously sentence of death had been pronounced on Miss Cavell and that she would be shot at 2 a.m. on the following morning (12 October). Strenuous, but unavailing, efforts were made both by Mr. Whitlock and the Spanish minister to obtain at least a respite. All that they were granted was permission for the chaplain of Christ Church, Brussels, the Rev. H. S. T. Gahan, to visit her before the end, and he brought away her last messages.
Memorials of Miss Cavell have been set up in England and elsewhere. On 15 May 1919 her body was brought to Norwich Cathedral after a memorial service in Westminster Abbey. A statue of her, the work of Sir George Frampton, R.A., stands in St. Martin’s Place, London, to record the price which she paid for doing what she conceived to be her duty.
To many English minds the execution of Miss Cavell was a judicial murder. British tribunals throughout the War avoided passing sentence of death upon women, even when found guilty of the most dangerous espionage. There is no evidence that Miss Cavell was in any sense a spy. She did nothing for pecuniary reward. Charity and the desire to aid the distressed were the mainsprings of her life. But the German military code prescribed the penalty of death for the offence of which she was found guilty. The procedure in this case was the same as that in other courts martial. Deference to her sex and some allowance for honourable motives might have been expected from humane judges. Presumably the judges were afraid to be humane and thought that the obedience of the Belgian population must be assured by severe sentences. The execution then was justified according to German standards. But, if legally justifiable, it was assuredly a blunder. Popular opinion in the allied countries considered Nurse Cavell to be a martyr.
[The Times, 16 and 22 October 1915; Correspondence with the United States Ambassador respecting the Execution of Miss Cavell at Brussels, Cd. 8013, 1915; La Vie et la Mort de Miss Edith Cavell, 1915; private information. Portraits, Royal Academy Pictures, 1916 and 1917.]