Edith Cavell Memorial

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Memorial to Edith Cavell by Sir George Frampton, 1920
St Martin's Place
London, September 2014

“The Edith Cavell Memorial is an outdoor memorial to Edith Cavell by Sir George Frampton, in London, United Kingdom. The memorial is sited in St Martin's Place, beside the A400, just outside the northeast corner of Trafalgar Square, north of St Martin-in-the-Fields, east of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, and south of the London Coliseum. The site is adjacent to the first headquarters of the British Red Cross, originally located at 7 St Martin's Place. Cavell was a British nurse from Norfolk. She was matron at Berkendael Medical Institute in Brussels when the First World War broke out in 1914. In addition to nursing soldiers from both sides without distinction, she assisted some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. She was arrested in August 1915, court-martialled, found guilty of treason, and shot by a German firing squad on 12 October 1915. Her story was used in British propaganda as an example of German barbarism and moral depravity. Her remains were initially buried in Belgium, but returned to Britain after the war in May 1919 for a state funeral at Westminster Abbey before she was finally buried at Norwich Cathedral. Although Cavell's sister, Lilian Wainwright suggested no monuments should be erected, funds for a public memorial were raised by a committee chaired by Harry Levy-Lawson, 1st Viscount Burnham, owner of The Daily Telegraph, together with the Lord Mayor of London, the Bishop of London, and the chairman of London County Council. Sculptor Sir George Frampton accepted the commission in 1915, but declined any fee.” (Edith Cavell Memorial, Wikipedia)