Edith Cavell was born the eldest of four children on December 4th, 1865 in a small village near Norwich, England where her father held a long tenure as vicar. Edith received a classical English boarding school education and spent a period after her schooling serving as a governess in Brussels.

After caring for her father following a grave illness, Edith became a nurse at the London Hospital in 1896. In addition to working at hospitals and infirmaries throughout England, Edith served as a private traveling nurse, visiting and caring for patients in their own homes. In 1907, Edith assumed a position as matron at the newly founded L'École Belge d'Infirmières Diplômées (known in English as the The Berkendael Medical Institute) in Brussels. While serving as matron at the Berkendael Medical Institute, Edith launched a nursing journal, L’infirmière, and taught nursing in many schools throughout Belgium.

World War I broke out while Edith was in England visiting family which precipitated an immediate return to Belgium where she began serving as a Red Cross nurse. Following the German occupation of Brussels in 1914, Cavell began collaborating with others to shelter and smuggle Allied soldiers out of Belgium and into the Netherlands. Motivated by deeply held Christian faith, Edith insisted on treating wounded soldiers on both sides of the war effort, which, combined with her outspokenness against the war and the occupation, placed her in violation of German military law. Edith Cavell was arrested on August 3rd, 1915. During her depositions to the German police, Edith confessed to smuggling more than 60 British and 15 French soldiers, as well as 100 French and British draftable civilians out of Belgium and into neutral countries.

The evening before she was executed, Edith spoke to Father Stirling Gahan, the Anglican prison chaplain, these words which are inscribed on her memorial near Trafalgar Square in London: “Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” On the morning of her execution, she asked Pastor Paul Le Seur, the Lutheran prison chaplain to 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.” Edith Cavell was executed by the German government on October 12th, 1915.