Patrick Comerford
When we were in Norwich last week for the funeral of a priest friend in Saint Peter’s Church in Lingwood, Norfolk, we stayed within view of Norwich Cathedral and a short two-minute walk to the Cathedral Close.
Three of the great women saints in the calendar of the Church of England have close associations with Norwich: the writer and mystic Julian of Norwich (1342-1413); the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845); and Edith Cavell (1865-1915), who was a lonely voice condemning the evils of war and narrow nationalism during World War I.
During an earlier visit to Norwich about two years ago (25 March 2024), I had seen Edith Cavell’s memorial by Henry Alfred Pegram (1862-1937) outside the Erpingham Gate at Norwich Cathedral, but I had missed her grave at the east end of Norwich Cathedral, on Life’s Green.
So, last week, I went back to Norwich Cathedral, both before and after the funeral in Lingwood, to see her final resting place, chosen by her family in her home city after her execution in 1915.
Edith Louisa Cavell was born on 4 December 1865 in the village of Swardeston, near Norwich, where her father, the Revd Frederick Cavell (1824-1910), was the vicar for 45 years; her maternal grandmother Anne Archer (1808-1881) was Irish born. She was educated at Norwich High School for Girls, and at boarding schools at Clevedon, Somerset, and Laurel Court, Peterborough.
In 1888, when she was 23, Edith was governess in Keswick Hall, near Norwich, for the children in the Gurney family, the family of Elizabeth Fry. She later spent five years with a family in Brussels, and began nursing training in London at the age of 30.
At the invitation of Dr Antoine Depage, she became the matron of a new nursing school in Brussels in 1907. She was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk when World War I broke out and returned to Brussels, where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.
After the German occupation of Brussels in November 1914, Edith began sheltering British soldiers, helping them to escape to the neutral Netherlands, and hiding wounded British and French soldiers and Belgian and French civilians of military age. She was arrested on 3 August 1915, charged with harbouring allied soldiers and war treason, despite not being a German national, and was sentenced to death. The First Geneva Convention guaranteed the protection of medical personnel, but this was forfeit if used as cover for belligerent action. At her trial, she made no attempt to defend herself.
The British government said it could do nothing to help her. The US had not yet entered the war, but Hugh S Gibson of the US legation at Brussels warned the German government that executing her would further harm Germany’s already damaged reputation. He reminded the Germans of the burning of Louvain and the sinking of the Lusitania.
The sentence of death by firing squad was confirmed at 4:30 pm on 11 October 1915, to be carried out before dawn the next day. Her final words to the German Lutheran prison chaplain, the Revd Paul Le Seur, were, ‘Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country.’
Pastor Le Soeur realised that Edith could not receive spiritual help from someone in a German uniform. He hurriedly called for the Revd Horace Sterling Townsend Gahan (1870-1958), the Irish-born Anglican chaplain in Brussels, who shared Holy Communion with her on the night before her execution. Gahan who was not at home, but eventually the message reached him to meet the German chaplain at his lodgings. Learning of Edith’s fate was a very shocking moment for him.
Gahan arrived with a pass at Saint Gilles Prison after 8:30 that evening, 11 October 1915, and went to Edith’s cell. There he found her calm and resigned. He recalled her words, ‘I have no fear or shrinking; I have seen death so often it is not strange, or fearful to me!’
They shared Holy Communion together and he stayed for an hour. She spoke kindly of her treatment in prison and said, ‘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.’ The meeting ended after they softly recited together the hymn Abide with Me. On leaving, he said ‘God Bless’; she smiled and replied tenderly, ‘We shall meet again.’
Two firing squads formed of 16 men carried out the death sentence on her and four Belgian men in Schaerbeek at 7 am before dawn on 12 October 1915. News reports after her execution were found to be only true in part. Even the American Journal of Nursing repeated the fictional account that she fainted and fell because of her refusal to wear a blindfold in front of the firing squad. Allegedly, while she lay unconscious, the German commanding officer shot her dead with a revolver. She was 49.
Pastor Le Seur, the German army chaplain, recalled at the time of her execution, ‘I do not believe that Miss Cavell wanted to be a martyr … but she was ready to die for her country … Miss Cavell was a very brave woman and a faithful Christian.’
Immediately after her execution, Gahan wrote a moving account of their last meeting. It was sent through the US Legation to the Foreign Office in London, where it was released. Her story was used in war-time propaganda as an example of German barbarism and moral depravity.
As for Sterling Gahan, he continued to live in Brussels until 1923, and he was sometimes known affectionately as ‘Father Pat’ because of his Irish origins. He was born in Lurganboy, Co Donegal, on 11 November 1870, a son of Frederick Beresford Gahan, an engineer, and his wife, Katherine Jane (Townsend). He was ordained deacon (1894) and priest (1895), and worked in parishes in England until 1905, when he returned to Ireland. He moved to Brussels as the Anglican chaplain of Christ Church, just as World War I was about to break out. He returned to England and a parish in Leicester in 1923, and died in 1959.
Edith Cavell’s body was exhumed after World War I and brought back to England in May 1919. She was given a state funeral in Westminster Abbey and then taken to Norwich for burial. She was buried in the Cathedral Close at Life’s Green, beside Saint Saviour’s Chapel, built in Norwich Cathedral as a memorial to Norfolk’s dead in World War I.
Edith Cavell became the most prominent British female casualty of World War I, and many memorials were created around the world to remember her. The sculptor Sir George James Frampton (1860-1928) accepted the commission for her monument near Saint Martin-in-the-Fields Church in London, but declined any fee.
The memorial was unveiled by Queen Alexandra on 17 March 1920. The inscription on the pedestal reads: ‘Edith Cavell / Brussels / Dawn / October 12th 1915 / Patriotism is not enough / I must have no hatred or / bitterness for anyone’. The last three lines quote her words to the Sterling Gahan, the Irish-born Anglican chaplain who shared Holy Communion with her on the night before her execution.
The reredos in Holy Trinity Church, Essex Street, Norwich, where Edith worshipped with her mother, was dedicated as a memorial to her. The Edith Cavell Health Care Campus is on the site of the former Edith Cavell Hospital in Peterborough, and there is a memorial to her in Peterborough Cathedral. She is also remembered in the name of the Cavell car park at the Queensgate shopping centre in Peterborough.
A new grave at Norwich Cathedral was blessed and dedicated on Sunday 15 May 2015. marking the centenary of her death, with a new headstone inspired by the standard design of the Imperial War Graves Commission and featuring the emblem of her nursing school in Brussels. The headstone honours her family’s request that her grave should resemble those of the soldiers she cared for. The work includes new pathways, a memorial garden planted with Edith Cavell roses and a newly-commissioned headstone and ledger stone, created by Wayne Hart, an award-winning letter-carver, typographer and sculptor.
A version of her final saying is carved on the ledger stone, ensuring her prophetic voice is not forgotten: ‘In the light of God and eternity I have realised that patriotism is not enough: I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.’
At the dedication service, Bishop Graham James said: ‘The tremendous thing is almost a century on her grave is visited more than perhaps it ever has been. It shows her story resonates, her service, her bravery and her Christian faith. It will continue to inspire Christians and people of all faiths and none.’
A plaque near her grave quotes her final words and explains, ‘As matron of a hospital in Brussels she tended with great devotion the wounded of enemy and allied forces alike. For helping many of our men to escape she was sentenced to death and was shot on October 12, 1915.’
Inside Norwich Cathedral, close to her grave, Saint Saviour’s Chapel is a memorial for members the Royal Norfolk and Royal Anglian Regiments. It was built after World War I on the site of the former Lady Chapel, and its features include significant memorials, regimental history on carved seats, and beautiful Arts and Crafts style stained glass windows by AK Nicholson.
Elizabeth Fry, the Prison Reformer, and Edith Cavell, the Fearless Nurse, are among ‘those who hear the word of God and obey it’ and are commemorated in the Church of England calendar in Common Worship on 12 October. Services honouring the story of Edith Cavell’s bravery and faith are held at her grave each year on 12 October to mark the anniversary of her death, and in May to mark the anniversary of her reburial.
The version of her last words carved on her new gravestone seem so poignant today, and so wise in the world today in the face of the frightening rise of ugly nationalism that disguises itself as patriotism: ‘In the light of God and eternity I have realised that patriotism is not enough: I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.’
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