Edith Cavell - Memorials, Books on Edith Cavell

Nurse, born in Swardeston, Norfolk, E England, UK. She became a nurse in 1895, and matron of the Berkendael Medical Institute, Brussels, in 1907. She tended friend and foe alike in 1914–15, yet was executed by the Germans for helping Belgian and Allied fugitives to escape capture.

Edith Cavell was born in 1865 at Swardeston in Norfolk, where her father, the Reverend Frederick Cavell, was Vicar for 45 years. Nurse Cavell is alleged to have helped hundreds of soldiers from the allied forces to escape from occupied Belgium to the neutral Netherlands, in violation of military law. UK and US diplomats disagreed about whether anything could be done to help her case, with Sir Horace Rowland, from the Foreign Office suggesting "I am afraid that it is likely to go hard with Miss Cavell, I am afraid we are powerless."

Representing the United States, which had not yet joined the war, Hugh Gibson, First Secretary of the American legation at Brussels, made clear to the German government that executing Cavell would further harm their nation's already damaged reputation. Count Harrach broke in at this with the rather irrelevant remark that he would rather see Miss Cavell shot than have harm come to one of the humblest German soldiers, and his only regret was that they had not 'three or four English old women to shoot.'"

She made no defence admitting her actions and was executed by firing squad at 2am on October 12, becoming a popular martyr and entering British history as a heroine. Edith Cavell's case became an important article of British propaganda throughout the war .

Her final words to the German pastor, Le Saur were recorded as 'Ask Mr. Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country.'

After the war Edith Cavell's body was exhumed and returned to the UK.

Memorials

Following her death, many memorials were created around the world to remember Cavell. Mount Edith Cavell, a peak in the Canadian Rockies, named in 1916.

Edith became a popular French and Belgian girls' name after her execution.

Books on Edith Cavell

Kindred Spirit: Memory, Landscape and the Martyrdom of Edith Cavell, by Katie Pickles, Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (due for publication June 2007), ISBN 1-4039-8607-X The Edith Cavell Nurse from Massachusetts - The War Letters of Alice Fitzgerald, an American Nurse Serving in the British Expeditionary Force, Boulogne-The ... Trial, And Death of Nurse Edith Cavell by Alice L. Lymon Cabot (July 2006), Publisher: Diggory Press, ISBN 1-84685-202-1 Edith Cavell by Sally Grant, David Yaxley and Robert Yaxley (illustrators), Publisher: The Larks Press (May 1995) ISBN 0-948400-28-5 A whisper of eternity;: The mystery of Edith Cavell by A. Yoseloff (1957), ASIN: B0007DUAIC Friend Within the Gates: The Story of Nurse Edith Cavell, by Elizabeth Grey, Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co (June 1971), ISBN 0-395-06786-3 The Story of Edith Cavell, by Iris Vinton, Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap (1959), ASIN: B0007DY2FE Dawn;: A biographical novel of Edith Cavell, by Reginald Cheyne Berkeley, Publisher: Sears (1928), ASIN: B00085XCEI Edith Cavell, by Rowland Ryder, Publisher: Hamilton (1975), ISBN 0-241-89173-6 Edith Cavell: Nurse, Spy, Heroine, by Leeuwen, Published: G. Putnams Sons (1968), ASIN: B000J6G6OY Edith Cavell, heroic nurse, by Juliette Elkon Hamelecourt, Publisher: J. Messner (1956), ASIN: B0007ETGGI The Secret Task of Nurse Cavell: A Story about Edith Cavell, by Jan Johnson, Publisher: Harper San Francisco (1979), ISBN 0-03-041661-2 A noble woman: The life story of Edith Cavell, by Ernest Protheroe, Publisher: C.H. 3rd ed edition (1918), ASIN: B0008AH3RU With Edith Cavell in Belgium, by Jacqueline Van Til, Publisher: H.W. Bridges (1922), ASIN: B00088GV84 Ready to Die: The Story of Edith Cavell (Faith in Action Series), by Brian Peachment, Publisher: Canterbury Press, ISBN 0-08-024189-1 In memoriam: Edith Cavell, by William S. Murphy, Publisher: Stoneham (1916), ASIN: B0008BTZ5C The case of Edith Cavell: A study of the rights of non-combatants, by James M. Putnam's Sons, ASIN: B00087OKN8 The secret trial: An unhistorical charade suggested by the life and death of Edith Cavell, by Richard Heron Ward, ASIN: B0007JC7Q4 The Dutiful Edith Cavell, by Noel Boston, Publisher: Norwich Cathedral (1955), ASIN: B0007JR6U6