Edith Cavell Facts & Worksheets

• Upon her return to England in 1895, she initially served as a governess, including a position with a family in Brussels. Subsequently, Cavell returned home to attend to her father during severe illness. The experience prompted her to pursue a career in nursing following her father’s convalescence. Cavell commenced her nursing career at the Fountain Fever Hospital in Tooting in December 1895. 
• She attained her nursing qualification at the London Hospital before returning in 1906 to serve at the Institute of Surgery and oversee the Berkendael Medical Institute in Brussels. 
• Cavell was assigned to collaborate with fellow nurses from London Hospital during the Maidstone typhoid epidemic, from 15 October 1897 until early January 1898, while she was still a probationer. 
• In conjunction with her colleagues, she received the Maidstone Typhoid Medal. After her training, Cavell was a private nurse from October 1898 to December 1899, employed by the Private Nursing Institution of the London Hospital, where she provided care to patients in their residences.
• Cavell travelled to provide care for patients who have cancer, gout, pneumonia, pleurisy, ocular conditions, and peritonitis. 
• In the year 1901, Luckes endorsed Cavell for the role of night superintendent at St Pancras Infirmary. In November 1903, she assumed the position of assistant matron at St Leonard’s Infirmary located in Shoreditch.
• In 1906, Cavell accepted a temporary position as matron at the Manchester and Salford Sick and Poor and Private Nursing Institution, where she served for approximately nine months.
• In 1907, Cavell was appointed by Dr. Antoine Depage, the royal surgeon of Belgium and the founder and president of the Belgian Red Cross, to serve as the matron of a newly established nursing institution, L’École Belge d’Infirmières Diplômées, located on the Rue de la Culture in Ixelles, Brussels.
• By 1910, Miss Cavell perceived that the nursing profession had established a substantial presence in Belgium, justifying the publication of a professional journal. Consequently, she initiated the nursing journal entitled L’infirmière. Within one year, she was responsible for training nurses across three hospitals, twenty-four educational institutions, and thirteen kindergartens in Belgium.
• Cavell was extended an offer for the position of matron at a clinic in Brussels. She collaborated closely with Depage, a member of an expanding cohort of professionals in the medical field in Belgium. 
• He recognised that the care offered by religious institutions had not kept pace with advancements in medical science.
• At the onset of the First World War, Cavell was in Norfolk, visiting her bereaved mother. She returned to Brussels, where the Red Cross assumed her clinic and nursing school. In 1914, the Red Cross established a hospital within her premises, which swiftly transformed into a sanctuary for French, Belgian, and English soldiers seeking to return to the front lines by traversing through the Netherlands. 
• Consequently, Cavell emerged as a significant connection within this network of soldiers traversing from northern France to the Netherlands through Belgium.

ASSISTANCE TO ALLIED SOLDIERS AND EXECUTION

• In November 1914, after the German occupation of Brussels, Cavell commenced providing refuge to British soldiers and facilitating their passage from occupied Belgium to the neutral territory of the Netherlands. Her group’s activities intensified in conjunction with the withdrawal of the French and English forces towards the Marne. 
• Injured soldiers remained isolated in the field hospitals of Northern France and the Ardennes, while others became disconnected from their respective divisions. Wounded British and French soldiers, along with Belgian and French civilians of military age, were concealed from the Germans and supplied with counterfeit documentation by Prince Réginald de Croÿ at his château in Bellignies, located near Mons. 
• Subsequently, they were escorted by various guides to the residences of Cavell, Louis Séverin, and others in Brussels, where their sponsors would supply them with funds to facilitate their journey to the Dutch frontier, as well as provide them with guides procured through Philippe Baucq. 
• Princess Marie de Croÿ attended to the soldiers who successfully evaded detection by the German forces at the Château de Bellignies. Subsequently, they were transported to Edith Cavell, from whom they received apparel and counterfeit documents before reuniting with their respective armies. 
• This situation persisted from November 1914 until July 1915, facilitating the escape of two hundred individuals from the German-occupied territory.
• Ultimately, the plot was exposed, leading to the arrest of the sixty-six members of the clandestine network during the summer of 1915. The French intelligence operative Gaston Quien faced allegations of betraying the network; however, he was exonerated owing to insufficient evidence. 
• Cavell was apprehended on 3 August 1915 and subsequently charged with the offence of harbouring Allied combatants. She had been deceived by Georges Gaston Quien, who was subsequently found guilty by a French court for his collaboration.
• Avell was incarcerated in Saint-Gilles penitentiary for ten weeks, with the final two weeks spent in solitary confinement. She provided three statements to the German police on the 8th, 18th, and 22nd of August, in which she acknowledged her significant role in facilitating the passage of approximately 60 British and 15 French soldiers, along with around 100 French and Belgian civilians of military age, to the border. She indicated that she had harboured the majority of them in her residence.
• During her court-martial, Cavell faced prosecution for facilitating the passage of British and French soldiers, as well as young Belgian men, across the Dutch frontier, ultimately enabling their entry into Britain. She acknowledged her culpability upon signing a statement the day before the trial.