Where is edith cavell buried

A powder box given to Mrs. Emma Burgess at the birth of her baby was beautifully painted with flowers by Edith. When Edith was a girl, she was aware that her father badly needed a Church room to house the growing Sunday School for the children of the village.

She determined to do something about it. She wrote to the Bishop of Norwich, John Thomas Pelham, a grand but kindly man whose impressive tomb can be seen in the North transept of the Cathedral. She told him of the problem and he agreed to help, provided the village would raise some of the cash.

Edith wrote to the Bishop reminding him of his promise and so the Church room was built adjoining the Vicarage and to all accounts, very well used. Both Mrs. The East window in Swardeston Church is a memorial to Edith.

From a drawing by Edith Cavell, courtesy of Swardeston Church. Edith could never have known she was to become a heroine and martyr but she is said to have confided in a lighthearted way to a friend that she would like to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

The first part of her impressive funeral took place there, attended by Queen Alexandra, Princess Victoria and many others from all walks of life with military and nursing representatives from many parts of the world. The grave is well tended and nearly always covered in flowers.

Edith and her two younger sisters, Florence and Lilian, had their early education not at the recently opened village school but at home. From sixteen to nineteen years old, Edith went to three boarding schools; Kensington possibly St. However, French was well taught here, with ten minutes conversation as part of the daily curriculum. Edith showed a flair for it and as a result was recommended for a post in Brussels in Prior to this, she took several jobs as a governess.

Her first job was to look after a clergy household in Steeple Bumpstead. Despite the demands of her job, she still found time to keep up her hobbies of tennis and dancing. She once danced till her feet bled, which ruined her new shoes but cured her chilblains! She is remembered as being full of fun, always smiling and wonderfully kind to the children in her charge. She was, for a short time, governess to some of the Gurney children at Keswick New Hall in the next village and was affectionately remembered.

At about this time, Edith was left a small legacy and decided to spend it on a Continental holiday. She spent some weeks in Austria and Bavaria, and was deeply impressed with a free hospital run by a Dr. She endowed the hospital with some of her legacy and returned with a growing interest in nursing. Edith Cavell as a governess. In , Edith took a post with the Francois family in Brussels.

She stayed here for five years and became a firm favourite with the family, even though she objected to their jokes about Queen Victoria being a prude. She continued to paint in her spare time and became fluent in French. Her summer breaks were spent in Swardeston, playing tennis and painting. A romantic attachment with her second cousin Eddie emerged at this time.

Edith might have accepted him had he proposed but he confided to another cousin that he felt that due to an inherited nervous condition, he perhaps ought not to marry. He remained Vicar until his retirement in Helping to restore her father to health made Edith resolve to take up nursing as a career.

In the summer of , an epidemic of typhoid fever broke out in Maidstone. Of who contracted the disease, only died. Edith received the Maidstone Medal for her work here — the only medal she was ever to receive from her country. She soon moved back into the front line of nursing and in was a Night Superintendent at St. Pancras, a Poor Law Institution for destitutes where about one person in four would die of a chronic condition.

At Shoreditch Infirmary, where she became Assistant Matron in , she pioneered follow up work by visiting patients after their discharge. Those early pastoral visits with her mother in Swardeston obviously had a lasting effect.

However, since the Matron, Miss Hall, became ill, she filled in as Matron. Edith Cavell with some of her nurses in Brussels. In , after a short break, Edith returned to Brussels to nurse a child patient of Dr. Antoine Depage but he soon transferred her to more important work.

Depage wanted to pioneer the training of nurses in Belgium along the lines of Florence Nightingale. Until now, nuns had been responsible for the care of the sick and, however kind and well intentioned, they had no training for the work. It was formed out of four adjoining houses and opened on October 10th, She worked at several London hospitals and became director of a training school in Brussels, the first of its kind in Belgium.

Once the Great War began in she helped organize the escape of Allied soldiers, disguising some of them as patients. On 5th August she was arrested by the Germans and condemned to death and despite international efforts to save her she was shot.

A transcript of the last letter she wrote to her cousin is in the Abbey archives. This image can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library. Designed by. Developed by. Toggle navigation. Edith Cavell. Her card read: In memory of our brave, heroic, never to be forgotten Miss Cavell. Edith was arrested in August At her trial, she agreed she had helped soldiers to escape and she was condemned to death.

She was shot by a firing squad on 12 October; she was 49 years old at the time of her death. The full story of her life and legacy can be found at the Edith Cavell website. Home Help with your research Local history Edith Cavell.