Monument | War dead | WW1

Edith Cavell statue

Erection date: 16/3/1920

Inscription

{Beneath the statue of Cavell:}
Edith Cavell, Brussels, dawn, October 12th 1915.
Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone.

{Near the top, at the front:}
For King and Country.

{Level with that, on the back:}
Faithful until death.

{Above the statue of Cavell:}
Humanity

{Level with 'Humanity', on the left hand side, back and right hand side:}
Devotion
Fortitude
Sacrifice

This was the obvious memorial to choose as the first featured memorial for London Remembers, in February 2004. Cavell was executed by the Germans in Brussels and she figures on our other site, Brussels Remembers. She was a British nurse, executed for helping allied soldiers escape.

Click on the button at the left: "subjects commemorated" to gather more details of her heroic live and death.

Unveiled by Queen Alexandra in 1920. 4 years later Cavell's words "Patriotism. . . . " were added.

Site: Edith Cavell statue (1 memorial)

WC2, St Martin's Place

We thank Jamie Davis for finding this link to the British Pathe news film of the unveiling and for sending a 18 March 1920 news-clipping which says that prior to the arrival of this statue this island was occupied by a statue of General Gordon, which was removed to Khartoum.

Osbert Sitwell did not like this memorial. In his 1928 People's Album of London Statues, he writes that it: "with its absurd babies and all its apocryphal tackle of quite meaningless and sentimental allegory, further vitiated by a mistaken effort at German modernity, is an eyesore and atrocity of the most infamous kind."

A wreath is laid here every year on 12 October, the day she was executed.

This site was previously occupied, for a few months in 1902, by a statue of General Gordon on a camel. See there for more information.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the subjects commemorated on the memorial on this page:
Edith Cavell statue

Subjects commemorated i

World War 1

We'd always assumed that this war was known as the Great War until WW2 came a...

Read More

Edith Louisa Cavell

Edith Cavell was born on 4 December 1865 in Swardeston in Norfolk. At the age...

Read More

This section lists the subjects who helped to create/erect the memorial on this page:
Edith Cavell statue

Created by i

Queen Alexandra

Wife of Edward VII, mother of George V. Born at the Amalienborg Palace, Copen...

Read More

Sir George Frampton

Sculptor.  Born at 91 Brook Street, Lambeth. Died at home at 91 Carlton Hill,...

Read More

Nearby Memorials

J. Lyons war memorial - second location, gone

J. Lyons war memorial - second location, gone

UB6, Oldfield Lane North

At its source this photo of the two memorials is dated: "25 January 2001, just prior to their movement to storage and re-erection in Hamm...

Knights Templar, Great Fire & Millennium

Knights Templar, Great Fire & Millennium

EC4, Inner Temple

A nearby information board gives: The column in this court was erected and dedicated in the year 2000 AD in the centre of what was forme...

4 subjects commemorated, 6 creators
Parish pump Tooting

Parish pump Tooting

SW17, Mitcham Road

The quirky and much-missed Faded London Blog had a post on this item. Borough photos has a 1906 photo showing this structure in front of ...

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
People of London - St Paul's

People of London - St Paul's

EC4, St Paul's Churchyard

Cut from a single block of Irish limestone. The quote was used by Churchill but actually written by Sir Edward Marsh in relation to WWI. ...

4 subjects commemorated, 4 creators
24th London Division - memorial

24th London Division - memorial

SW11, East Carriage Drive, Battersea Park

These 3 figures are said to be modelled on the soldier poets: Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, and Siegfried Sassoon but the carved faces are...

2 subjects commemorated, 2 creators