Statues and monuments are fascinating. They reflect what is important at the time they are created, especially those who are in a position to fund or authorise the creation and implementation of a statue.

They are intended to be an almost permanent memorial to an event or person. Walk around a city, and the majority of statues and memorials tend to be for those involved in the military or monarchs, and whilst the majority tend to be of men, Queen Victoria was one of the few women to be immortalised by a statue. Queen Anne has a statue in front of St. Paul’s, but they are the exception.

Events are also commemorated, and the period following a war is often one where multiple statues and memorials are erected. The horror of the First World War was such that in the years after the end of the war, almost every city, town and village across the country ended up with some form of memorial to those who had died.

Many statues and memorials are made of stone, and the use of this material, aligns with those responsible for the idea, the funding, creation and erection of the statue or memorial, that it should be permanent. It should outlast those who created it, and it should carry a message for future generations.

In recent years, a number of statues have fallen out of favour as a result of changing attitudes to the person represented – views that would have seemed bizarre to those who originally erected the statue. Our views, the things we represent and choose to record with a memorial or statue may also fall out of favour in the future – everything changes.

Walk up Charing Cross Road from Trafalgar Square and there is one memorial / statue that is still very relevant. One of the few statues of a woman in a significant location and a memorial to a heroic act amidst the barbarism of war:

This is the statue and memorial to the nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed on the 12th of October, 1915 by the German forces that occupied Brussels:

The statue was unveiled on the 17th of March 1920. It would have been completed earlier, but the war delayed sourcing of the marble for the statue from a mine in Italy.

A typical syndicated news report of the unveiling reads as follows:

“Nurse Cavell, London Statue Unveiled – Queen Alexandra unveiled yesterday, in St. Martin’s Place, Trafalgar Square, London, in the presence of a large Anglo-Belgian assembly, a statue of Edith Cavell, which has been erected out of the fund subscribed by readers of the Daily Telegraph. The monument, of grey granite, stands forty feet high, and the statue of white marble shows Miss Cavell standing erect in her nurse’s uniform. On the base is the simple inscription ‘Edith Cavell, Brussels, dawn, October 12th, 1915’.

Viscount Burnham, in an appropriate address, invited Her Majesty to unveil the memorial, and in reply Queen Alexandra said: This beautiful statue, the work of our distinguished sculptor, Sir George Frampton, will stand for all time as a memorial of one who met a martyrs fate, with a calm courage and resignation which has rarely been excelled. The countless thousands who will pass this spot in our time, and in future generations, will think with sorrow of her cruel death, with pride of her splendid fortitude, and with affection of her unselfish and womanly character. The example of Miss Edith Cavell’s life will always be before us.”

The sculptor of the work, Sir George Frampton was also the creator of the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens. His work can also be seen on the Lloyds Register of Shipping building at 71 Fenchurch Street, where he was responsible for the decorative friezes around the façade of the building.

The unveiling ceremony was attended by several members of the Cavell family and delegations of nurses, including one from the Ecole Edith Cavell in Brussels.

The main structure of the monument is of granite, and the statue of Edith Cavell is of Italian marble:

Edith Louisa Cavell was born in 1865 in Swardeston, a small village just to the south of Norwich in Norfolk. Her father was the Reverend Frederick Cavell, and for the early years of her childhood, she was educated in the vicarage.

She later attended Norwich High School, and then three boarding schools, including a school in Kensington.

After leaving school, she started work as a governess, and following the receipt of a legacy, she started to travel across Europe, and in 1890 she took on the role of governess for a family who lived in Brussels.

Five years later, she returned to her Norfolk home to nurse her sick father, which apparently inspired Edith to pursue a career in nursing, so she started to train at the Royal London Hospital.

In 1907, she returned to Brussels, where she took on the role of running a school for the training of nurses. The school was very succesful.

In August 1914, German forces occupied Brussels. Whilst many other British nurses leave the city, Edith remains, and is soon treating the sick and wounded of all the nationalities involved in the First World War.

Later in 1914, two British soldiers, who had been stranded in the confusion of the German invasion, and the retreat of the British and French, find their way to Edith’s training school, where they are given shelter.

In the following months, many other stranded soldiers find their way to Edith’s school, and an escape organisation develops to help stranded soldiers escape and return to Great Britain.

In August 1915, a Belgian collaborator had passed through the school, resulting in the school being searched. Whilst nothing was found, the German secret police started to take a more focussed interest in the workings of the school, and on the 5th of August 1915, Edith Cavell is arrested, as well as many other colleagues and those involved in the organisation to assist those wanting to escape.

Edith is interrogated for three days, and makes a confession only after being told that it was the only way in which her friends would be saved. She is transferred to the St Gilles prison in Brussels, where she spends the rest of August and the whole of September.

On the 7th of October 1915, Edith, along with some of her colleagues, are taken before a Germany military court. It many ways it was a show trial as there was no jury, and those accused did not have any proper legal representation, and on the 11th of October, Edith, along with four of her colleagues are sentenced to death. Others involved in the escape organisation receive prison sentences.

Appeals to the German authorities are made by the Americans (who had not yet entered the war), the Dutch and the Spanish. The Pope also made an appeal for clemency.

Edith Cavell, from the Wellcome Collection:

Licence: Public Domain Mark Credit: Edith Louisa Cavell. Photograph. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Nurses looking at floral tributes at the statue of Edith Cavell:

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Credit: Statue, Edith Cavell 1865-1915 Brussels, dawn October 12 1915. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collectio

Despite the appeals for clemency, Edith was shot at dawn on the 12th of October, 1915.

Before October 1915, Edith very rarely appeared in any newspapers. On the 20th of October 1888, she was mentioned in the Norwich Argus for her role in the East Suffolk Sewing Scheme, and on the 1st of January 1898, she was mentioned in the Deal, Warmer and Sandwich Mercury as one of those responsible for decorating the church of St. George with evergreens, white flowers, ferns and ivy for Christmas.

In June 1910, she is mentioned as one of the mourners at her father’s funeral, but this quiet life changes in October 1915, when her name is across all the national and local newspapers of the country.

The first that the country appears to hear of Edith and her execution is on the 16th of October, when papers report that the Foreign Office was informed of her death by the United States Ambassador.

These initial reports bring to their readers the full horror and barbarism of war, which had descended to such a level that a nurse could be executed, for example from the Eastern Evening News on the 18th of October, 1915:

“How Nurse Cavell Died – Shot by a German Officer – In an account of the execution of Miss Edith Cavell at Brussels – she was found guilty and sentenced to death on a charge of aiding Belgian men to escape to England – the Amsterdam correspondent of the Daily Mail states: The German firing party of six men and an officer were drawn up in a garden surrounded by a high wall. She was led in, blindfolded with a black scarf. Up to this minute she had stepped out bravely to meet her fate. But before the rifle party her strength at last gave out, and she tottered and fell to the ground. The officer in charge of the execution walked to her, and drew a large pistol from his belt, took steady aim from his knee, and shot her through the head. The firing party looked on. The officer then ordered the soldiers to carry the body to the house, where charge was taken of it by a Belgian woman. The execution of Miss Cavell has shocked the whole Belgian community.”

It is interesting that by the time that the statue was unveiled, Edith’s execution had been raised to a more heroic story. From the London Evening News on the 17th of March 1920:

“Homage of Two Nations – A grey morning in Brussels, one October day in the year 1915. A file of German soldiers, with an officer in command. A quiet figure in the habit of a nurse facing them at a little distance. Dead silence in this prison yard on the grey October morning. The word of command brings up the soldiers rifles, so that they are levelled at the breast of the quiet, motionless figure. Another command. The rifles spout red flame, the noise of the exploding charges rends the air. The steadfast figure shudders and falls forward; dead.”

As well as numerous newspaper reports, a range of prints were made depicting various aspects of her execution. These were often used to show the barbarous nature of the enemy, to encourage recruitment into the army, as at the time of Edith’s execution, conscription had not started.

The following print by Alexander Rosell is a prime example. Described as Edith Cavell wearing a Red Cross uniform lying dead on the floor as her spirit rises in the form of an angel, whilst a Prussian officer stands over her corpse, stroking his beard. A stone cross shattered into pieces lies on the ground:

Licence: Public Domain Mark Credit: Edith Cavell wearing Red Cross uniform lying dead on the floor as her spirit rises in the form of an angel. Process print after A. Rosell, ca. 1915. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Edith Cavell’s monument and statue is Grade I listed for a number of reasons, including the historic interest of the memorial, the quality of the sculpture and Sir George Frampton’s design and craftsmanship, along with the overall location of the memorial in that it continues from Trafalgar Square and is adjacent to the National Portrait Gallery.

At the very top of the memorial is the figure of a woman shielding an infant. In the folds of her dress is the Geneva Cross, now used by the Red Cross, and traditionally a symbol used for the protection of medical personal in war:

The rear of the monument has the word “Fortitude” above a relief of a lion standing triumphant over a serpent, which symbolised Britain’s triumph over treachery:

Sacrifice – on the side of the memorial:

Devotion on the other side:

The reason for writing about Edith Cavell and the monument and statue to her in Charing Cross Road, is a chance find whilst we were in Norwich a couple of weeks ago.

Norwich Cathedral is a magnificent building that deserved a look:

And whilst we were having a look around the cathedral, we found that Edith Cavell was buried just outside at Life’s Green, next to the Cathedral’s St Saviour’s Chapel:

Edith Cavell’s body was brought back to England in May 1919, when “The body of Nurse Cavell was yesterday conveyed from Brussels to Ostend, whence it will be brought to England to-day on board a British destroyer. Impressive scenes attended its removal. When the coffin reaches Dover, this evening special honours will be rendered by nurses and other women war workers. It will lie in state to-night at the Admiralty Pier preparatory to its departure for London tomorrow.”

From Dover to London, the coffin was carried by train, and from Victoria Station to Westminster Abbey, it was carried through the streets on a gun carriage. A service was held at Westminster Abbey, after which it was replaced on the gun carriage and transported to Liverpool Street Station, where a special train took the coffin to Norwich, where, after a second service, Edith Cavell was buried where we find the grave today.

The stone at the grave is not the original. It dates from 2015, the 100th anniversary of her death. The headstone is in the style of those also used in War Graves Commission cemetaries – a request from the family.

The emblem on the top of the headstone is that of her nursing school in Brussels:

Around the edge of the grave are the words “In the light of God and eternity I have realised that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness to anyone”.

These words are a variation of words spoken by Edith Cavell on the day before her execution. The part of the sentence starting at Patriotism is also on the memorial in London.

The memorial to, and statue of Edith Cavell is not just a memorial of one person, important though it is. It is also a reminder of the horror and barbarism of war, and, as recorded on the front of the memorial, just above the statue, the importance of humanity.

Hopefully Edith’s approach to her fellow humans is one attitude which will not go out of favour in the centuries to come.