Who was edith cavell? Google doodle celebrates british nurse

Edith Cavell, who helped thousands of Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium in World War 1, is celebrated in today’s Google Doodle. Edith Cavell was born on December 4, 1865 in

the small village of Swardeston, Norfolk not far from Norwich. She lived and worked in Belgium as a Governess but moved back to her hometown after her father became unwell. From this, she

was inspired to become a nurse and trained in London at the Royal London Hospital, under Matron Eva Lückes, a friend of Florence Nightingale. After complete nursing in 1898, she held a

number of roles in British hospitals and worked in Shoreditch, Kings Cross and Manchester. She accepted a position in Belgium’s first training hospital L'École Belge d'Infirmières

Diplômées’. At the time there was no established nursing profession in Belgium and Cavell’s pioneering work led her to be considered the founder of modern nursing education in that country.

When World War 1 broke out, she was in Norfolk visiting her mother. She felt it was her duty to return to Brussels after hearing of the threat to Belgium, from the advancing German troops.

Cavell told those closest to her “at a time like this, I am more needed than ever” and returned to Belgium. The teaching hospital in Belgium became a Red Cross hospital and she treated

casualties from both sides of the war. She treated the men in her hospital and arranged to have them smuggled out of Belgium into the neutral Netherlands. Cavell helped to smuggle the Allied

solider under her care out of the hospital and across the border into the neutral Holland. It is beloved she saved the lives of more than 200 men thanks to her bravery, sheltering them in

the hospital and arranging for guides to take them to the border. On August 5, 1915, she was arrested and placed in solitary confinement in St Gilles Prison in Brussels. She was tried at

court martial on October 7, 1915, along with 34 other people involved in or connected to the network. Cavell was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death by German firing squad on

October 12, 1915. Her execution was legal under international law, it caused outrage in Britain and in many neutral counties, such as the United States. Cavell’s image was widely used in

propaganda and recruitment posters encouraging British soldiers to sign up to the war effort.