Lest we forget: Edith Cavell 1865–1915

The story of Nurse Cavell has been told many times, most recently by Souhami ¹ and previously in this journal by John Ford. ² In 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Cavell had spent seven years as the founding principal of the first school of nursing in Belgium. As a result of her dedication and diplomacy, the school was now providing well-trained nurses for three hospitals and three nursing homes. The school in Brussels had gained an excellent reputation and was about to move into larger premises. Then, Germany invaded Belgium and, overnight, Cavell’s world and that of those around her disintegrated into chaos and horror.

It was all a far cry from her orderly and secure upbringing in the vicarage of an English village. There she had been indoctrinated with the Victorian values of duty and hard work and with the Christian ethic of alleviating suffering and of service, especially to the poor. After working as a governess, she found her vocation in nursing which provided the practical expression of her Christian duty and faith. At that time nursing made immense demands on its practitioners with long hours of work, much of it menial, and the requirement for study and examinations. The demands were all the greater on those like Cavell who spent the first 10 years of her career working in the poorest and most destitute areas of London.

Her colleagues noted her unremitting attention to detail and her aspiration to excellence. She put the interests of others before her own and never spared herself. She wanted little for herself, eating and living modestly. Even as a school principal her rooms were sparsely furnished. Her manner was reserved, and a matron with whom she had worked as assistant matron for two years wrote that she never knew anyone who really got to know Edith Cavell. As she became more senior she expected obedience from those junior to her, as was customary at the time, but she was by no means a martinet. Rather, she inspired devotion among both patients and colleagues. In her lectures to students she insisted that care of the patient must be imbued with compassion and she emphasised that devotion to their vocation would bring its own rewards. There was no demarcation in her own life between her nursing and such private life as she allowed herself.

Wounded soldiers who arrived at the school’s hospital were given the same care irrespective of nationality because Cavell insisted that nursing recognised no frontiers. However, the Germans soon made their own arrangements for their wounded. Cavell then moved beyond the provision of nursing care by assisting allied soldiers to cross the border into neutral Holland. She became an important part of two escape networks and helped fugitives from the Germans whether they were wounded or healthy. Before the war, Cavell had refused to tell even minor lies but now she lied to the German authorities and created fictitious medical records for healthy soldiers who she disguised as Belgian civilians. She felt justified in her deceit because she did not recognise the moral authority of the oppressive and ruthless German military regime which, according to Cardinal Mercier, had shot thousands of innocent civilians by Christmas 1914 and had ruined the lives of millions more. She avoided direct involvement of her nurses but must have known that the Germans could take reprisals against them.

Perhaps even more questionable was her decision that the circumstances also took precedence over the neutrality of the Red Cross to which her hospital was affiliated; but Cavell knew of 10 British soldiers who had been shot when their hiding place was discovered. The miller who had hidden them was also shot and his family sent as prisoners to Germany. Her compassion for those in such peril merged seamlessly with patriotic duty. The scale of her involvement made discovery inevitable. In nine months, she helped several hundred people to escape and at one time there were up to 80 fugitives hiding in the school; but as long as there were people at risk she continued with her work, although she knew that the net was closing in on her. She remained calm even though she expected to be arrested. In prison, she maintained her composure. Selfless as ever, she was more concerned about her colleagues and her elderly mother than about herself. ‘I am quite well’, she wrote, ‘more worried about the school than my own fate.’ Even when sentenced to death she maintained an imperturbable aura of calm, ‘toujours mâitresse d’elle même’. OPEN IN VIEWER

Both her tranquillity and her consolation while in prison derived in great part from her devotional reading of The Imitation of Christ, written in the 1420s and generally attributed to Thomas à Kempis (c.1380–1471), an Augustinian Canon Regular. The passages which she underlined reflected her life of charity (charity in its early and all-embracing sense of Christian love, benevolence and tolerance towards others) and especially the adversity and hardships of the last year. Just as Thomas had played down the importance of earthly values while emphasising the benefits of solitude and silence, so Cavell spoke positively of her 10 weeks of solitary confinement in St. Gilles prison as ‘a solemn fast from earthly distractions … Life has always been hurried and full of difficulty; this time of rest has been a great mercy.’ And we may reasonably assume that she had successfully followed Thomas’s instructions for ‘inward peace, purity of heart, a good conscience’ because she told the German pastor who accompanied her to her execution that ‘Ma conscience est tranquille. Je meurs pour Dieu et ma patrie.’

One passage in her copy of The Imitation was underlined twice and annotated ‘St. Gilles, Oct 1915’. It read: ‘It were more just that thou should accuse thyself and excuse thy brother.’ These words may have been one of the influences behind her last words to the Anglican clergyman who administered the Holy Sacrament on the eve of her execution ‘But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity: I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.’