Wikipedia has an article about Edith Cavell that tells us:
The Edith Cavell Memorial is an outdoor memorial to Edith Cavell by Sir George Frampton, in London, United Kingdom. The memorial is sited in St Martin's Place, beside the A400, just outside the northeast corner of Trafalgar Square, north of St Martin-in-the-Fields, east of the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery, and south of the London Coliseum.
Cavell was a British nurse from Norfolk. She was matron at Berkendael Medical Institute in Brussels when the First World War broke out in 1914. In addition to nursing soldiers from both sides without distinction, she assisted some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium. She was arrested in August 1915, court-martialled, found guilty of treason, and shot by a German firing squad on 12 October 1915. Her story was used in British propaganda as an example of German barbarism and moral depravity. Her remains were initially buried in Belgium, but returned to Britain after the war in May 1919 for a state funeral at Westminster Abbey before she was finally buried at Norwich Cathedral.
Although Cavell's sister, Lilian Wainwright suggested no monuments should be erected, funds for a public memorial were raised by a committee chaired by Viscount Burnham, owner of the Daily Telegraph, together with the Lord Mayor of London, the Bishop of London, and the chairman of London County Council. Sculptor Sir George Frampton accepted the commission in 1915, but declined any fee.
Frampton adopted a distinctively Modernist style for the memorial, which comprises a 10 feet (3.0 m) high statue of Cavell in her nurse's uniform sculpted from white Carrara marble, standing on a grey Cornish granite pedestal. The statue stands in front of the south side of a larger grey granite pylon which stands 40 feet (12 m) high and weighs 175 tons. The top of the block is carved into a cross and statue of a mother and child, sometimes interpreted as the Virgin and Child. The whole memorial is elevated on three steps.
On the pedestal beneath the statue of Cavell is an inscription which reads:
Edith Cavell
Brussels
Dawn
October 12th 1915
Patriotism is not enough
I must have no hatred or
bitterness for anyone
The last three lines of the inscription quote her comment to Reverend Stirling Gahan, an Anglican chaplain who was permitted to give her Holy Communion on the night before her execution. These words were initially left off, and added in 1924 at the request of the National Council of Women.
The face of the granite block behind the statue of Cavell bears the inscription "Humanity", and higher up, below the Virgin and Child, "For King and Country". Other faces of the block bear the inscriptions, "Devotion", "Fortitude", and "Sacrifice". On the rear face of the block is a carving of a lion crushing a serpent, and higher up, the inscription, "Faithful until death".
The memorial was unveiled by Queen Alexandra on 17 March 1920. It received a Grade II listing in 1970, and was upgraded to a Grade I listing in 2014.
The Grade I listed memorial is contained in the Historic England website and advises:
Reasons for Designation
The Edith Cavell Memorial is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:
- Historic interest: the memorial commemorates one of the most famous civilian casualties of the First World War, and stands out as a rare (and very early) war memorial to an individual woman. Genuine victim and propaganda cult figure, Cavell’s reputation continues to resonate;
- Sculptural interest: Frampton is ranked amongst the foremost sculptors of his day, and the nurse’s effigy and symbolic group of Humanity each portray his ability to convey character and pathos;
- Design interest: Frampton’s granite setting was recognized as remarkable in its day for its austerity and monumentality, and anticipated future developments in modern commemorative sculpture;
- Group value: prominently sited outside the National Portrait Gallery, the memorial continues northward the important ensemble of statuary in Trafalgar Square.
History
Swardeston, Norfolk-born Edith Cavell (1865-1915) trained as a nurse at the London Hospital, and from 1907 was director of a pioneering nurses’ training school in Brussels.
Following the rapid German invasion of Belgium in 1914, Cavell became involved in helping allied soldiers, caught behind enemy lines, and Belgians desirous to enlisting, to escape to Britain through Holland. Arrested in August 1915, Cavell made a confession and was shot (along with Philippe Baucq, another leader of the escape organization) on 12 October 1915.
Diplomatic efforts were made to spare her life, particularly by the US Ambassador, but in vain. Her execution, presented as a deed of German barbarism (although in clear contravention of German military code of occupation, and of the first Geneva Convention) prompted considerable revulsion: this was fully exploited for propaganda purposes, becoming a rallying call for recruitment to the Allied cause. Regarded as the most renowned female casualty of the First World War.
Cavell’s memorial was one of the very first memorial projects of the First World War, being suggested in October 1915 soon after her death, and promoted by The Daily Telegraph.
The noted sculptor Sir George Frampton RA (1860-1928), best known for his Peter Pan statues and for the lions outside the British Museum, and the leading exponent of the New Sculpture, undertook the project for free. He based his likeness of Cavell on her sister; wartime shortages of marble delayed carving the figure. Unveiled by Queen Alexandra on the 5th anniversary of Cavell’s execution, the memorial attracted a mixed reception.
The National Council of Women successfully petitioned the Office of Works to have Cavell’s words of forgiveness, which were told to a priest on the eve of her execution, included on the memorial: these were duly added in the summer of 1924.
After the Armistice, her body was exhumed from Brussels and, after a memorial service in Westminster Abbey, was re-buried in Norwich Cathedral Close. Another memorial to Nurse Cavell is located at Life’s Green, Norwich Cathedral, by Henry Pegram. Monuments to her in Brussels, Paris (destroyed 1940), Toronto and Melbourne, Australia testify to the strength of feeling her execution provoked across the world.
The memorial is in the care of English Heritage.