Poster, Late Nurse Cavell c1915

Summary

Nurse Edith Cavell (1865-1915) was shot by a German firing squad on 12 October 1915. Cavell was a British nurse who became a martyr and heroine for helping hundreds of allied soldiers escape from German occupied Belgium during the First World War. Her execution appalled the people of the Allied countries and influenced the United States in its decision to join the war. At the time of her death Cavell was already well-regarded in medical circles as an exponent of modern nursing techniques. The hospital that she supervised in Belgium was part of the Red Cross. Cavell became a symbol of individual sacrifice and, according to the view prevalent in English-speaking countries at the time, her summary execution indicated that Germany had sunk to a new low. Cavell’s story continued to have resonance as a powerful ‘marketing tool’ into the 1920s: 'She gave all - You buy peace bonds'. This poster complements Council's marble bust of Nurse Edith Cavell, located in the Kings Domain and completed in 1926. Donations for this memorial were so over-subscribed that as well as the bust, there was enough money to establish a fund to assist incapacitated war nurses. Melbourne's bust of Cavell is the only memorial to her in Australia. A total of ten memorials were erected worldwide, mostly in Empire countries. A memorial erected in Paris was destroyed in 1940 on the direct orders of Adolf Hitler.