deed (establishment of a faculty of commerce in London University; support of the Workers’ Educational Association; scholarships for technical and commercial education of workmen; promotion of the study of foreign languages by professorships, lectureships, or scholarships; endowments for the higher education of women, and £212,000 for founding a hospital for functional nervous disorders at Penshurst, Kent.
Portraits of Cassel were painted by P. A. de Laszló in 1900, and by A. L. Zorn in 1907.
[Private information; personal knowledge.]
CAVELL, EDITH (1865-1915), nurse, was born at Swardeston, Norfolk, 4 December 1865, the eldest daughter of the Rev. Frederick Cavell, vicar of Swardeston, by his wife, Louisa Sophia Walming. She was educated at home, at a school in Somerset, and in Brussels. In 1888, having inherited a small competency, she travelled on the Continent. When visiting Bavaria, she took much interest in a free hospital maintained by a Dr. Wolfenberg, and endowed it with a fund for the purchase of instruments. In 1895 she entered the London Hospital as a probationer. In 1897 she took charge of an emergency typhoid hospital at Maidstone. Having attained the position of staff nurse at the London Hospital, she engaged in poor law nursing, serving in the Highgate and Shoreditch infirmaries. Subsequently she took temporary charge of a Queen’s district nursery in Manchester. In 1906 she went to Brussels to co-operate with Dr. Depage in establishing a modern training school for nurses on the English system, the best nurses hitherto obtainable in Belgium having been sisters belonging to Catholic religious orders. Edith Cavell was appointed in 1907 the first matron of Depage’s clinic—the Berkendael medical institute—the success of which soon made it of national importance. Shortly before the European War it obtained official recognition, a new and larger building being added to it from state funds. She also organized and managed the hospital of St. Gilles. In August 1914 Dr. Depage went away to organize military hospitals, and Miss Cavell remained in charge. The German authorities gave her permission to continue her work in Brussels, the institute became a Red Cross Hospital, and she and her assistants devoted themselves to the care of the wounded, Germans as well as Allies.
When, in the latter part of 1914, the French and British forces were compelled to retire from Belgium, many soldiers from both these armies were cut off from their units. They hid themselves as best they could, for some, at least, of those who fell into German hands were summarily executed. But many escaped with the aid of the Belgian farmers and peasants. A regular system grew up under which these men were enabled to escape from the country. Miss Cavell was naturally one to whom those who needed aid applied; and she readily responded. Her conduct, careful as it was, aroused. suspicion. Suspicion led to espionage. On 5 August 1915 she was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in the prison of St. Gilles. Nine weeks later (7 October) she was brought to trial together with some thirty-five other prisoners. The charges against all were of a similar kind; the tribunal before which these persons, many of them women, were arraigned was a court martial; the proceedings were conducted in German, though a French interpreter was provided.
During the weeks when Miss Cavell lay in prison Mr. Brand Whitlock, the United States minister in Brussels, was active on her behalf. He wrote to Baron von Lancken, the civil governor of Belgium, stating that he had been instructed to take charge of her defence, and he asked that a representative of his legation might see her. This letter elicited no reply. When Mr. Whitlock wrote again he was told that the prisoner had already confessed her guilt, and that a M. Braun had been engaged by her friends to conduct the defence. In fact the defence was handed over to a member of the Brussels bar, M. Sadi Kirschen, who did everything possible under the circumstances. But, as the event showed, the conviction of Miss Cavell was a foregone conclusion. In accordance with the usual procedure of such courts in Germany, the prisoner was not allowed to see her advocate before the trial, nor was he granted access to the documents in the case. The allegation was that she had enabled no less than 130 persons to escape from Belgium. Merely assisting these men to escape to Holland would have constituted no more than an attempt to ‘conduct soldiers to the enemy’. Under German military law this is not a capital offence. But the confession which Miss Cavell is alleged to have signed on the day previous to the trial stated that she had actually assisted
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