Edith Cavell

Edith Cavell was an English nurse who, in 1907, became Matron of Belgium's first training school for nurses. When war broke out in August 1914, she formed a Red Cross hospital in Brussels and nursed wounded German and Belgian soldiers.

Following the German occupation of the city, her institution was placed at the disposal of the invading army, and despite being offered the chance to return to Britain, Miss Cavell decided to remain with her nurses.

In addition to her humanitarian work, over the following year Edith Cavell is credited with helping some 200 Allied soldiers to escape from German occupied territory. On 5 August 1915, she was arrested by the German authorities along with five of her associates. Brought to trial on 7 October, she was executed five days later by firing squad on the orders of the Governor General of Brussels.

Order of Service for the funeral of Edith Cavell, 15 May 1919.

The secretive manner in which her execution was carried out, and the sensational newspaper reports following the announcement of her death, ensured that Edith Cavell’s fate generated shock and revulsion among the population of Britain.
Together with incidents such as the sinking of the Lusitania and the execution of Captain Charles Fryatt, whose papers are also held in the Department, Edith Cavell’s death was used by Allied propagandists as evidence of the alleged inhumanity of the enemy.

The Imperial War Museum acquired its collection of Edith Cavell papers over a number of years and from diverse sources. Of particular significance are the fragments of the diary kept by Miss Cavell during the German occupation of Brussels; the letters she wrote to her family and to members of her nursing school from the outbreak of war to her last days in prison; and the German documents relating to her arrest, trial and execution.