NEN Gallery

This statue in memory of Edith Cavell is located opposite the National Portrait Gallery. Edith Cavell was born in 1865 at Swardeston in Norfolk. She trained as a nurse at The Royal London Hospital and in 1907 was appointed matron of the Berkendael Institute in Brussels, Belgium. She is said to have helped hundreds of soldiers from the allied forces to escape from occupied Belgium to the neutral Netherlands. In 1915, she was arrested and court-martialled by the Germans for this offence. She was executed by firing squad at 7am on October 12.