Edith Cavell, Nurse
12 October -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of any Saint, page 513
Edith Cavell was born into a clergy family at Swardeston in
1865. After life as a governess, she trained as a nurse,
ending up working with the Red Cross in Belgium in 1907. On
the outbreak of the First World War, she became involved in
caring for the wounded on both sides. She refused
repatriation and then began smuggling British soldiers from
Belgium into Holland. In 1915 she was arrested and brought
to trial. Protecting those who worked with her, she was
sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on this day
in the year 1915. She went to her death calmly, forgiving
her executioners, convinced she had been doing her duty as a
Christian.