Edith Cavell and her Legend Christine E. Hallett Edith Cavell and her Legend Christine E. Hallett Edith Cavell and her Legend Christine E. Hallett Professor of History The University of Huddersfield Huddersfield, UK ISBN 978-1-137-54370-7 ISBN 978-1-137-54371-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54371-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018959109 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. 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Neither the pub- lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu- tional affiliations. Cover illustration: Cover Pattern © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Pivot imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Limited The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom P a reface and cknowledgements This project took four years to complete. During its research phase, the centenary of Edith Cavell’s execution created a new upsurge of interest in her life, work, and death, enabling me to incorporate numerous insights drawn from recent commemorative activity into the work. The book’s main purpose is to trace the parallel processes of individual memory and public commemoration across a period of one hundred years, in order to offer insights into the nature of memory, remembrance, and commemora- tion. In Edith Cavell’s case, these processes were highly volatile, and the availability of primary sources—many of them distorted and some deliber- ately fictional—has at times threatened to become overwhelming. In order to bring coherence to the project, I have chosen to focus mainly on British commemorative processes, using evidence from British sources. Alongside these, however, I have incorporated material relating to Britain’s self- governing Dominions (particularly Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), along with some Belgian material that enabled a better understanding of the commemorative partnership that developed between the British and Belgian nursing professions. I have accumulated numerous debts. My research took place at several British libraries and archives, and I would like to acknowledge the kind assistance of librarians, archivists, and curators at the Imperial War Museum, London; the Archives of The Royal London Hospital; the Wellcome Library, London; and the Royal College of Nursing Library and Archives, London and Edinburgh. I would add my particular thanks to Porshia Boafo of the Royal College of Nursing Archives, who kindly obtained a copy of Cavell’s Nursing Mirror article, published in April v vi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1915; and to Jane Rosen of the Imperial War Museum Archives, who arranged for me to see original holdings at the Imperial War Museum which were not available on microfilm. I am very grateful to Emma Cavell, a descendant of Edith Cavell, who kindly confirmed that permission was not required for the reproduction of text from Cavell’s own writings. The inclusion of extensive quotations from Cavell’s letters, publications, and diary has greatly enhanced the book. Material has also been directly quoted from several biographies— notably those authored by Adolphe Hoehling, Archibald Clark-Kennedy, Rowland Ryder, and Diana Souhami, and from a number of newspapers. Of particular value has been the direct quotation of material from two British newspapers: The Times and The Manchester Guardian (later The Guardian). Collections of letters, eyewitness statements, and other manu- script and printed sources were accessed at the Imperial War Museum, London. Among the materials directly quoted in this book are letters and narratives donated by Archibald Clark-Kennedy, Rowland Ryder, Millicent Battrum, and Jesse Tunmore. Images are reproduced by kind courtesy of The Wellcome Collection, London, UK, and the Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA. The length of time it has taken me to bring this project to completion has, undoubtedly, tested the patience of my commissioning editors at Palgrave Macmillan—Emily Russell and Carmel Kennedy—and I thank them, and their colleagues, for their valuable support, professionalism, and tolerance. I would also like to thank my employer, the University of Huddersfield, UK, for its collegiality and support. Beyond that, my appre- ciation goes to Professor Alison Fell, the University of Leeds, for her gen- erous advice and support; and to the anonymous reviewers who advised on both the initial proposal for this book and on an early draft. As always, I owe the greatest debt of gratitude to my family, particularly to my mother, Margaret Hallett, and my husband, Keith Brindle, for their constant support and generosity. Huddersfield, UK Christine E. Hallett c ontents 1 Introduction: Faces of Edith Cavell 1 2 Edith Cavell: Her Life and Her Death 7 3 Interleaving Stories 39 4 Legend 81 5 Conclusion 115 Bibliography 121 Index 133 vii l i ist of mages Image 2.1 Portrait of Edith Cavell. (Credit, US Library of Congress) 9 Image 3.1 Propaganda Image: Edith Cavell executed by a Prussian soldier, 12 October 1915; Lettering reads: “She was glad to die for her country. Pro patria. Her spirit endureth ever!”. (Credit: Wellcome Collection (V0006911)) 46 Image 3.2 Edith Cavell wearing Red Cross uniform lying dead on the floor, a gloating jackbooted Prussian officer stands over her corpse, holding a smoking revolver, Death with a lantern looks on. Colour reproduction of a painting by T. Cobella, 1915. (Credit: Wellcome Collection CC (V0006885)) 70 Image 4.1 Statue; Edith Cavell, 1865–1915, Brussels, dawn 12 October 1915. (Credit: Wellcome Collection, CC BY) 89 Image 5.1 “Edith Cavell, 1865–1915, Photograph, Daily Mirror”; Quote reads: “I have seen death so often that it is not strange or painful to me. I am glad to die for my country. Brussels, October 12th 1915”. (Credit: Wellcome Collection CC BY 4.0) 118 ix CHAPTER 1 Introduction: Faces of Edith Cavell Abstract Edith Cavell has been portrayed in many different ways, and this book examines her myriad “faces”, as they have been constructed and handed down by propagandists, biographers, and artists. Its introduction relates these ideas to a rigorous form of “public history”, in which analysis can intersect with commemoration. Edith Cavell was first introduced to the British public through a series of Foreign Office statements which claimed to establish the “facts” of her case. Her own voice, along with those of her family, colleagues, and friends, was muted, as a monolithic image of a national heroine and martyr emerged. The two main areas of tension in her commemoration are identified. The difference between the complexity of her behaviour and motivations and the simplicity of the “legend” that was constructed around her is highlighted. And the attempts of individuals and professional organisations to commemorate her life and work are contrasted with the public construction of a “heroine” who could be of value to the nation state. Keywords Edith Cavell • Public history • Commemoration • Legend • Propaganda A century after her death, Edith Cavell has many faces: some physical— carved out of marble or stone; others portraits—made in pencil, waterco- lour, or oils. Some are realistic, others highly stylised, still others totally © The Author(s) 2019 1 C. E. Hallett, Edith Cavell and her Legend, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54371-4_1 2 C. E. HALLETT imaginary. Some were drawn or sculpted with the intention of recapturing an accurate likeness of Edith Cavell; others were intended as external rep- resentations of what the artist believed to be her interior features: her character, her motivations, her transcendent qualities. But the most pow- erful faces of Edith Cavell were neither carved from rock nor painted on canvas. They were created in narrative form: mind’s eye images, emerging out of carefully constructed stories. Through these stories, Edith Cavell has been handed down through the generations since her death as a frag- mentary figure—more a crowd than an individual. Although one of the aims of this book is to offer a reintegrated portrait of Edith Cavell, its other—more important—goal is to examine and analyse the multitude of “Edith Cavells” that have emerged in approximately 100 years since her death. I hope to set these against the contexts and circumstances of their times in order to offer a better understanding of how these “cultural after- lives” of Edith Cavell emerged. In a book this size, it is impossible to examine every commemoration and representation of Edith Cavell—literally thousands of such represen- tations exist. My focus is, therefore, primarily on the ways in which Cavell was remembered, commemorated, and memorialised in her home coun- try, Britain, although a few prominent and significant overseas commemo- rations are also considered—particularly in Cavell’s adopted homeland of Belgium, and in Britain’s self-governing Dominions. In his Theatres of Memory, Raphael Samuel equated history with mem- ory.1 His perspective has been criticised by some professional historians, who baulk at any failure on the part of the historian to distance himself or herself from the material evidence. Yet, others—particularly self-confessed “public historians”—openly embrace Samuel’s approach.2 In examining the way Edith Cavell has been handed down through generations of nar- rators, both professional and amateur, this book draws on the idea of “public history” as a rigorous engagement between historical analysis and collective memory. It explores the ways in which individual memories come under public ownership through the processes of “remembrance”, only then to be transformed and hardened into a single dominant narra- tive which becomes the focus for public acts of “commemoration” and “memorialisation”. It also considers the ways in which, in Edith Cavell’s case, these processes were advanced both through deliberate manipulation by organisations such as the British War Propaganda Bureau and, more organically, through the receptiveness of British and Dominion citizens to a ‘whitewashed’ image of Cavell as national heroine.