A Noble Woman: The Life-Story of Edith Cavell

Edith Louisa Cavell was born in 1866 at the country rectory of Swardeston, near Norwich, of which parish her father, the Rev. Frederick Cavell, was rector for forty years. In that pleasant sunny house the little girl passed her early days in uneventful happiness, for Swardeston had few interests apart from the obscurities of its own rural retirement.

The rector, who was a kindly man at heart, but firm to the point of sternness where his duty was concerned, ruled his home with evangelical strictness. His daughter Edith was a thoughtful child; and her unfailing consideration for others and her concern for their welfare caused her to be beloved by everybody. But the child's innate gentleness was tinged with a sense of duty remarkable in one of her years, which characteristic was the undoubted outcome of her father's precept and example.

Edith Cavell's education was as thorough as her parents could contrive; and, apart from mere scholarship, her outlook was widened by being sent to a school at Brussels.

When the Rev. Frederick Cavell died, the family removed from Swardeston to Norwich, and Edith decided to adopt the profession of nursing the sick poor. To that end on September 3, 1895, she entered the London Hospital as a probationer, and remained in that great institution for nearly five years. From the first, by her unselfish devotion to duty she endeared herself to her colleagues and patients alike. Part of the time she was staff nurse in the 'Mellish' Ward; and when the authorities sent her to Maidstone at the great outbreak of typhoid in that town, she did excellent work.

Later, Miss Cavell was appointed to the post of night superintendent at St. Pancras Infirmary, where she remained for three years; then she migrated to Shoreditch Infirmary to act as assistant superintendent. As evidence of her more than ordinarily wide experience, it should be stated that for a time she worked at Fountain Hospital, Lower Tooting, under the Metropolitan Asylums Board; and for nine months she acted temporarily as matron of the Ashton New Road District Home, Manchester.

In all these varied spheres of activity Nurse Cavell proved herself not only a capable nurse, but she became a clever, painstaking teacher, able to illustrate her eloquent lectures by means of her own facile and useful diagrams. Many nurses acknowledge their indebtedness to her lucid teaching, and are proud to claim their one-time association with one whose devotion and energy made her an ornament of a noble profession.

The sense of duty, which in the child was indicated so plainly, in after years developed into almost a religion. Every one with whom Miss Cavell came in contact speedily understood that she placed duty before either friendship or personal comfort. Her hospital training had taught her the value of discipline, and she would never tolerate inefficiency, or any tendency towards slackness, in her subordinates. As a surgical nurse her skill was remarkable; but her undoubted forte was the power of organization, which is almost rare compared to mere cleverness in the technical details of nursing.