General Chat

90 years ago today, Edith Cavell was executed by a German firing squad. She was so brave and did so much to help our servicemen then, she probably hoped things would never be as bad again, but still nations fight and brave men and women lose their lives or have injuries that change their lives forever.




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Norwich remembers Edith Cavell
Emma Knights
Sunday, 10 October, 2010


She is a Norfolk heroine who sacrificed herself to help Allied soldiers to safety during the first world war.


And at a special service at Norwich Cathedral on Saturday the bravery and selflessness of Edith Cavell was remembered.

Organised by the Norfolk and Norwich Combined Ex-Services Association, the poignant remembrance service was held around Edith’s grave nearly 95 years to the day that she was executed by a German firing squad on October 12 1915.

When the first world war broke out Edith had been head matron of Belgium’s first nurse training school and the school went on to become a safe house for Allied troops. Before being discovered by the Germans, Edith had helped some 200 soldiers escape from occupied Belgium to safety.

On Saturday morning, scores of people turned out to pay their respects to the heroic nurse who was born in Swardeston in 1865.

The Band of the Salvation Army from Mile Cross and standard bearers from military associations across the county marched to her graveside for the start of the service in which the Rev Paul Burr, vicar of Swardeston, addressed the congregation and wreaths were laid on Edith’s grave.

Pascal Gregoire, first secretary of the Embassy of Belgium in London, travelled to Norwich especially for the service.

He said: “We make a point to participate in the service every year because we think it is important to show that we still remember Edith Cavell, that she gave her life in Belgium for British soldiers and she helped to build the first nursing school in Brussels. She is well remembered in Belgium.”

Stuart Holmes, a Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Norfolk, said it was a very moving ceremony.

He said: “It is so important that we remember Edith Cavell for her display of courage in the face of adversity and her sense of duty even knowing what the consequences could be.”

Derek James, Sheriff of Norwich, who attended the memorial with his wife Bridgette, added: “Edith Cavell’s death seems more poignant than ever with recent events, and the service was also an opportunity to remember men and women in the armed forces today.”

Bill McLintock, from the Ex-Services Association and who organised the event, said he was very pleased with the amount of people who came to the service.

“For me this service is so important because Edith Cavell did something for Britain to be proud of by looking after the servicemen and trying to help them in any way she could,” he said.

Major Charles Colbeck, from the Swanton Morley-based Light Dragoons, and Colin Kemp, chairman of the Norfolk branch of the Royal British Legion, were among the other people to attend the service.

no one saw this yesterday but we need reminding of the bravery of this lady.

I can remember when I was a child(I was about 8yrs old) there was a big photograph on the classroom wall of a nurse . I used to stare at this photograph and wonder about her.Underneath the photograph was t he title Nurse Edith Cavell . Heroine.
One day I asked my teacher who the nurse was and she told me it was Edith Cavell who was a very brave lady.
But she never said what she had done that was so brave.That was a lost opportunity !
As I was interested in history even then,I eventually found out about her bravery. Years later I to became a nurse and would wonder would I have been as brave as she was.

Leni, a good nurse always puts her patients first, as shown by nurses in the London hospitals during the war, when they stayed with their patients through massive airraids. I am sure you would have come up to scratch. We had a small figurine of Edith Cavell in the cabinet at home, so I seem always to have been aware of her. Dad , serving in both world wars, was devoted to her memory.

A special woman who has probably inspired many nurses to pursue the vocation.

Lizx

In Northland NZ (Paparoa) the local hospital was called Edith Cavell Memorial Hospita. It has long since closed. My great uncle spent time in there after cutting his leg with an axe in about 1917.

I learnt about Edith Cavell when I went to The London Hospital in Whitechapel east London to commence my nurses training when I was 18 years old. There were two nurses Homes one was Edith Cavell and the other was .Eva Luckes.

I lived in the Eva Luckes home. I became very interested in Edith and learnt a lot about her, I started buying china pieces depicting her and I still have them at home in Spain. Then a friends father gave me a complete First World War 1 medical box which the nurses used to have, and after that for some reason I started to buy feeding cups and have about 50 of these,

A few years ago I found myself living near to Noorwich and was amazed and delighted to see how revered she is there, and I drove past her memoorial many times, but to my shame I never managed to get a photo of it.

So Purple you are right she was and still is my inspiration to remain in nursing.

I wonder sometimes who in nursing will inspire people today?/

Dear All

Hello

Hope you are well and doing okay.

To remember Miss Edith Cavell with gratitude.

Take gentle care
Very best wishes
xx

Purple. isn't it strange that more people have not replied on here, perhaps they do not know the history.

Perhaps you could start a new thread about strong and Influential women and you could start with Edith and maybe then we would also learn about other amazing women.

Kind regards

Hi Bridget, I will try and remember to start a thread up as you suggested, it's best done when I am around during the day so people see it, so many of my threads fade into oblivion cos they are started in the wee small hours and few people look back but just start the new day fresh, if you get me.

When I am next near the grave of Edith Cavell I will take a photo and send it to you, might not be for a while tho as I don't get down by the Cathedral much.

Actually I might already have a pic among all my photos so will check later and see.

Lizx

I just remembered that when I was 7 I went to school near my home, it was called the Cavell School and was on Cavell Road, in Norwich. I was only there for two years till I moved on to a newly built school which took pupils from my street and beyond.
I don't think the school ever told us about Edith Cavell tho and whether the school was named for her or the road it was on.

This next site has some pics of the memorial statue and of Edith Cavell's grave and of other statues of her too.
http://www.edithcavell.org.uk/

http://www.edithcavell.org.uk/

Hi Liz,
Edith Cavell is also honoured here in Canada & enclosing the given info via Wikipedia....
Mount Edith Cavell is a mountain located in the Athabasca River and Astoria River valleys of Jasper National Park, Canada. The mountain was named in 1916 for Edith Cavell, an English nurse executed by the Germans during World War I for having helped allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium to the Netherlands, in violation of military law.
Best Wishes,
AnotherCanuck x

That's interesting, ACanuck, thanks for putting that on here.

Lizx

You're very welcome Liz & thank you for posting this very interesting topic on Edith Cavell. She is one of my all time favourite heroines. Hope you've had an enjoyable day across "the pond"....Take care.
Best Wishes,
AnotherCanuck x

Liz, Thank you so much for the information about Edith Cavell, I will have to search her now. So how lucky I was to live in a building named after her.

Liz,"Purple" i am looking forward to seeing the photos.
Thank you

Good morning Purple I hope you have a good day today.
The phoyos and aticles are amazing and so well written. I have prited some just iin case my comp goes dow anytime and I have saved some ont my stick. when I go home early next year I shall write them out and or copy them onto some acid free paper and then keep them with the other items I have about her.
Now I am thinking of trying to do the same for Eva Luckes, do you know anything about her and do you admire anyone else? I really think you/we could develop this truly interesting thread that you started, to show just how influentail and brave women can be.What do you think?

Bridget

I didnt see this post till this morning..so thanks Purple for putting it up.
Being a Norfolk girl,I was taught about Edith at school...nothing else about ww1 that I remember though.
Bridget...Eva Luckes was a matron who Edith Cavell trained under,she was also a contempary of Florence Nightingale.
We have 3 very influential women here for a start
Kay

Here's another lady from Norwich:

Elizabeth Fry (nee Gurney) was born in 1780 into a well-to-do Quaker family in Norwich. As a child she did not enjoy the Quaker meetings and made her delicate health an excuse for missing them. Later Elizabeth became one of the Plain Friends whose religious observance was very strict: they dressed plainly and refused to join in with dancing and singing.

Elizabeth married a banker, Joseph Fry, who was the partner in Gurney’s Bank. She entertained as the wife of a wealthy businessman and helped him through financial crises, which drastically changed their lifestyle. Elizabeth bore eleven children. But it was her voluntary work in prisons that she is remembered for.

A visiting fellow-Quaker showed her the conditions in which women prisoners were kept in Newgate prison. Newgate was a prison which held both men and women awaiting trial, sentencing, execution, and transportation. Elizabeth found women and children living and dying in conditions of horror, filth, and cruelty. She resolved to do something about it.

Firstly, she visited the prisons and encouraged other middle class women to do so, overcoming official opposition and setting up education classes for women. She was ahead of her time in the way she treated the prisoners as human beings. Elizabeth did not impose discipline on them but instead proposed rules and invited the prisoners to vote on them, and she put an educated prisoner in charge.

Secondly, Elizabeth told people in the outside world about prisons. She used her connections in high places to good effect (despite her religious principles she enjoyed high society). Both Florence Nightingale and the young Queen Victoria admired Elizabeth for her compassionate exercise outside the home. She was the figurehead of philanthropic endeavour in this country and today is regarded as one of the early feminists. In 1835, she testified before the House of Commons Parliamentary committee, established to investigate "The State of Gaols in England and Wales." Elizabeth also spoke before a House of Lords Select Committee in the same year.



Her work
Elizabeth was the first penal reformer to devote her attention solely to the plight of imprisoned women. Her ideals for penal reform were based on the precepts of the Society of Friends (Quakers). Quakers emphasised personal, paternalistic means of correction, and their main instrument of reform was religion. Although nineteenth century Quaker doctrine and practice did not allow women a complete role in religious activities, the doctrine of direct inspiration made it possible for women to become ministers. Long before her work in prisons, Elizabeth had become a minister of considerable renown, noted for her "peculiar gift of exhortation." In 1797, Elizabeth wrote, "I love to feel for the sorrows of others."

It is significant that the initial concerns of Elizabeth centred on the children and not the women prisoners. She, unlike other early visitors, tended to concentrate on the behaviour of women rather than their moral corruptness. Whatever her initial conceptions of the women were she soon began to see them in a different light. In 1817, she wrote, "Already, from being like wild beasts, they appear harmless and kind." From the initial focus on convict children, Elizabeth quickly sought to improve the physical conditions for the women.

"We long to burn her alive," wrote the Reverend Sydney Smith in 1821 of Elizabeth, "Examples of living virtue disturb our repose and give birth to distressing comparisons." When Elizabeth started her work she frightened many people with her frankness about a subject most would rather have left un-discovered. As she progressed, the opposition to her dwindled. The Lord Mayor of London even demanded a tour of Newgate Prison so that he could see the good work she was doing for himself.

One of the first steps towards Elizabeth’s aims was the formation of the Association for the Improvement of the Females at Newgate. The Association comprised Elizabeth, a clergyman’s wife, and eleven members of the Society of Friends. The General Aims of the Association were,

"to provide for the clothing, the instruction, and the employment of these females, to introduce them to knowledge of the holy scriptures, and to form in them as much as lies in our power, those habits of order, sobriety, and industry which may render them docile and perceptible whilst in prison, and respectable when they leave it."

Newgate was transformed through the changes introduced by the Association.

vWith the early success of Newgate behind her, Elizabeth set out in 1818 to tour gaols in England and Scotland to establish other Ladies’ Associations. In 1825, Elizabeth published her short but influential book, "Observations of the Siting, Superintendence and Government of Female Prisoners." Unlike other early reformers, Elizabeth provided the concrete, explicit detail for operating penal regimes.

The driving force behind Elizabeth can be summed up in these words which she used to tell a fellow Quaker her feelings on Newgate Prison in 1813 after her first visit to the prison.

"All I tell thee is a faint picture of reality; the filth, the closeness of the rooms, the furious manner and expressions of the women towards each other, and the abandoned wickedness, which everything bespoke are really indescribable."


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I lived at my aunt's house in Elizabeth Fry Road in Norwich when I was very young, before my parents got their own council house. Strange that I had those sort of links to both ladies.

I know nothing about Eva Luckes, will google later and read about her.

Lizx

Liz,
Thank you for a very interesting descrition about anothe inflentail woman. I had forgotten all about Elizabeth an certainly learnt more form thia piece that I knew before.
I wonder who will be remembered from our generation apart from Maggie Thatcher and Sister Theresa.?

When I get home from work I shall write about someone else but not sure whom yet.

I wonder who will be written about next?

Take care

Bridget
I must look to see if thee any photos of her on the net

Purple, could you simply change the main heading and add "and other influential women"

n