Tributes Paid To Edith Cavell

Southland Times, Issue 23930, 23 September 1939, Page 13

Tributes Paid To Edith Cavell

With German “frightfulness” once more abroad in Europe, and directed towards inoffensive shipping, the production of the film “Nurse Edith Cavell” has made public the remarkable tributes paid to this courageous Englishwoman throughout the world. She was executed by a German firing squad for having assisted enemies of Germany to escape from Belgium. Extensive research in connection with Herbert Wilcox’s production of “Nurse Edith Cavell,” starring Anna Neagle for RKO, reveals that Miss Cavell has been canonized, not only by writers, songsters and sculptors—but by the more practical world. In Canada alone there are four “Cavell” towns. There is a river in British Columbia and a Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper National Park. The mountain is reached via the “Edith Cavell Glacier” where once a year memorial services are held for the martyr. Thousands of nursing and social chapters named after Edith Cavell exist in all’English-speaking countries and in Belgium. Typical of these is one in Southern California —at Ontario. It is called “The Edith Cavell Chapter of the Daughters of the British Empire.” The several hundred members, mostly of English descent, are foresworn to keep alive the memory and sacrifices of the peace-minded nurse. Other reminders of the great benefactor and humanitarian are: _A street in Lisbon, Portugal, and one in Brussels, Belgium, the Cavell Infantry Regiment in the London Territorial Army, nurses’ homes in London and Brussels, a number of World War Veterans’ posts in the United States and Sir George Frampton’s immense statue of her which stands in Trafalgar Square, near Admiral Nelson’s. Probably the greatest tribute of all was paid in 1919 by the British Empire when Miss Cavell’s remains were disinterred and laid to rest among England’s great in Westminster Abbey.