Edith Louise Cavell was born in 1865 in the vicarage at Swardeston and grew up there. She was an accomplished artist and would collect and draw flowers. Edith had a flair for French which she had learned easily and quickly. She had several jobs as a governess and was recommended for a post in Brussels in 1890.

In 1895 Edith returned to Swardeston to nurse her father through an illness. It was this that led Edith to take up nursing.

In 1905 she returned to Brussels and was put in charge of a pioneering training school for lay nurses on the outskirts of the city.

War

Edith often returned to visit her mother, who since her husband's death was living in Norwich. She was visiting her mother in the city's College Road when news of the German invasion of Belgium reached her. She was back there by August 3rd. In the autumn of 1914 two stranded British soldiers found their way to Nurse Cavell's training school, others followed and were spirited away to neutral territory in Holland. An underground lifeline was established, masterminded by Prince and Princess De Croy at a chateau in Mons, and some 200 soldiers were helped in their escape.

Arrest

Two members of the escape team were arrested on July 31st 1915, and five days later Nurse Cavell was interned.

Death

The German military authorities, having tried in secret and sentenced Edith and four officers to death, were determined to carry out the executions immediately. Despite frantic efforts to save her, by the American and Spanish ambassadors to Belgium, Edith was executed by firing squad in a rifle range just outside Brussels at dawn on October 12th, 1915.

Permission was given for the English Chaplain, Stirling Graham, to visit her the night before she was to die, and both repeated the words of "Abide with me..."

The Allies acclaimed Nurse Cavell as a martyr. Within eight weeks of her death, recruitment into the British Army (this was before conscription) had doubled.

After the War

After the war her remains were brought to Westminster Abbey for the first part of a burial service on May 15th, 1919. A special train then brought her to Thorpe Station, Norwich, from where a great procession followed her to The Cathedral and she was laid to rest here at Life's Green. This can be found at the east end of The Cathedral.
See the map page.

There is a Graveside Service at the Cathedral every October.
For more information see Services and Events page

To find out more, the Cathedral Shop has a free leaflet, and a small booklet entitled 'Edith Cavell, Nurse and War-heroine'.

Links

Edith Cavell website