Edith Cavell's journey back to Norfolk 

Within six months of the guns falling silent, the body of the Norfolk heroine was exhumed on March 17, 1919, and returned to Norwich.

The public uproar and outpouring of grief at the death of nurse Edith Cavell meant that when the First World War finally ended, there were immediately moves to bring her body back home.

Cavell was executed at the Tir National shooting range in Schaerbeek, Brussels, on October 12 1915, for treating allied soldiers in Belgium and helping them escape from German-held territory. 

One shot had gone through her forehead, and there was a bullet hole the size of a fist through her heart. She was buried close to where she died.

Over the next three years, slaughter continued across northern Europe and countless more men and women lost their lives. 

But through all this, Cavell's passing stayed at the forefront of the public’s consciousness. Within six months of the guns finally falling silent, her body was exhumed on March 17, 1919, and just weeks later arrangements were made to finally bring Cavell’s body home to Norfolk. 


On May 13, her coffin was taken to the Gare du Nord, in Brussels, on a gun carriage that was escorted by a detachment of British troops sent from Cologne, where they were occupying the German city. Crowds lined the Brussels streets.

At the station, the Rev Stirling Gahan conducted a service, before the coffin was taken by train to the port of Ostend.

Waiting at the dock was the Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Rowena, which took the body across the English Channel to Dover.

HMS Rowena

It was May 15 when her body, in a railway carriage which later became known as the Cavell Van, was taken to London.

It arrived at Victoria Station at 11am. For the second time in two days, a capital city came to a standstill as Cavell's body was conveyed through the streets.

The Cavell Van

Hundreds of nurses and soldiers escorted the gun carriage carrying her coffin to Westminster Abbey. 

There, a funeral service was held, attended by royalty and senior politicians. Her coffin was then taken to Liverpool Street Station and put on another train up to Norwich. 

A third street procession then followed as her coffin was taken from Thorpe Station, across the river and up towards the city's cathedral.