Edith Cavell

Hello there! I received a free figure when I visited the Partizan show. This year it was a model of Edith Cavell.

This subject was of significance to me as I have always been told that a distant relative had a connection to Edith Cavell. This has always been difficult to prove since parts of of family geneology has been difficult to trace.

There are a number of members of the Tunmore family around Norfolk. Notably Great Yarmouth, Coltishall, the Forncett villages and Norwich.

My grand mother married a Tunmore, in Great Yarmouth, but he died between the two World Wars. My father was born eighteen months later. However there were a number of rumours that she had a child with a relative of her late husband

Next to the memorial to Edith Cavell is an information board which has a short description of her story. It outlines where she was born and how she came to be working at a hospital in Belgium.

The roots of these rumours stem from the story of David Jessie Tunmore. He followed his father, George Jessie Tunmore into the army. While fighting in the rearguard covering the Mons retreat Jessie was captured after being injured. While at a hospital at a converted convent in Wiheries he made his escape. He paired up with a Private F Lewis of the 3rd Battalion Cheshire Regiment. The pair met up with a Belgian Miner who had helped escaped soldier before. The miner directed them to the clinique in Brussels run by Cavell.

After dodging German patrols and using trams to travel, with money given to them by the Belgian miner, they reached Brussels. They had been on the run for four months.

Cavell was at first suspicious of the two men, fearing that they were a trap to give her away to the Germans. Over Cavells' desk was a picture of Norwich cathedral. Jessie recognised the picture and said it was Norwich cathedral. From there the men were questioned about Norwich and when sufficiently convinced of their authenticity.

Eventually the two men made it to Holland and from there sailed to England. Where they were promptly arrested as suspected spies. Eventualyy he was properly identified and after some leave, where he contacted Cavells elderly mother, he returned to France after an illness.

After Edith Cavell was discovered to be assisting escaped prisoners, she was tried and executed by the Germans. This was used by the British as an atrocity and induced many to join up to fight against the Germans.

When Cavells body was bought back to Norwich, on 15th May 1919, Jessie acted as one of the pall bearers at her funeral.

The memorial is used to commemorate her life and is outside the Norwich Cathedral in the Tombland area of Norwich.

This picture is from later in his life and he is a warrant officer. He left the Army in 1934 as a company sergeant major. He re enlisted in the Second World War and became an officer in the Royal Army Service Corps

Here is the grave of  Edith Cavell, which is next to the rear of the cathedral.

Nearby there is also a previous grave marker as well.

While looking around the grounds of the cathedral I also found a memorial to the 97 men killed by the SS at Le Paradis on 27th May 1940.

On the way out I also came across some statues to Wellington and Nelson.

Lastly I left by the Erpingham gate. The following is from this website, here.

The Erpingham Gate to the north was built of flint in the early C15th, by Sir Thomas Erpingham. His kneeling figure is in an arch above the gateway facing the city, placed here in the late C17th. He was a very influential figure in the late C14th and early C15th. He was Chamberlain to Henry IV and guarded the deposed Richard II in the Tower of London. He was commander of Henry V’s archers at the Battle of Agincourt. He was buried in the cathedral and the Erpingham gateway was part of his legacy to the city of Norwich. His arms are on the side of the gateway facing the Cathedral. 

Sir Thomas Erpingham was born in 1357 in the Norfolk village of Erpingham, some 17 miles north of Norwich. His family had been in the village since the Norman Conquest and were part of the local gentry who came to be the holders of the manor in the early thirteenth century, taking the place name of Erpingham as their surname. After the death of his father, Sir Thomas went into the service of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and fought alongside Gaunt’s son (Henry Bolingbroke) across Europe and the Middle East. Bolingbroke later became King Henry IV and Sir Thomas was made his chamberlain. In 1400 Sir Thomas became a Knight of the Garter and received many estates in Norfolk and Suffolk. He used his position at court to promote the interests of Norwich and in 1404, the King gave Norwich its new charter, making it the County and City of Norwich.

Sir Thomas went on to have an impressive military and political career beyond the confines of Norfolk. He was a staunch supporter of the Lancastrian dynasty and part of Henry V’s inner circle, he was instrumental in the king’s political and military successes. In 1415, Sir Thomas went with Henry V to Agincourt where he is thought to have been in charge of the archers, riding out in front of the English lines giving the order to strike the French. Sir Thomas became a hero to many and was immortalised in Shakespeare’s Henry V, where one Act takes us through the English and French camps on the eve of the battle, portrayed as a steadfast and loyal ‘old hero’. However, whilst he was considered ‘good’ in Shakespeare’s play, we are told that he also had ‘another side’.

Erpingham was a man who, so they say, beat a monk from St Benet’s senseless after chasing him on horseback to just outside Thetford; then he mocked the Lord as he had the monk Hung, Drawn and Quartered…….. it has also been said that he helped Henry overthrow Richard II which, at any other time and situation, was enough to see the man excommunicated. If that was not enough, Erpingham was said to have practiced ‘chevauchée’ in France (pillage and probably rape – something that was a bit of a fashion in those days), so maybe he would have had little or no compunction about killing a monk. Further to this, there was a piece of folklore that grew amongst the populace following the completion of the Gate. Its theme depicted the process of Sir Thomas paying for the building of the Erpingham Gate as an act of personal penance – for a seedy episode during his life maybe?

Erpingham’s legend, of which we speak, makes reference to the fact that Sir Thomas more than disliked Henry le Dispenser, Bishop of Norwich; both, it appears, had been at each other’s throats for years. One reason must have been that Bishop Despenser, along with the Abbot of St Benet’s Abbey, had long tried to seize more and more land for themselves – and at one point they did ‘eye’ the lands belonging to Erpingham. Not only that but Despenser, a most currupt character by present-day standards, had also been siphoning funds from the cathedral to build his own castle at North Elmham, capped only by his being accused of treason on several occasions. In his dispute with Erpingham, Despenser attempted to lodge accusations of heresy against the knight, on the basis that Sir Thomas be friendship and supported John Wycliff and the Lollardy movement. One thing Despenser loved doing was burning Lollards!

In return, Sir Thomas Erpingham strove to turn the City of Norwich against the Bishop, and did manage to persuade the City’s authorities to endorse a list of accusations against Despenser. Clearly in the other camp, it was the Bishop who sympathised with the deposed Richard II and became implicated in a rebellion against Henry IV; as it was, the house of Despenser had a long-standing enmity with the House of Lancaster – and ultimately Sir Thomas. It followed that when King Richard II was disposed, Bishop Henry le Despenser was disgraced. Added to this was the fact that it was Sir Thomas Erpingham who, when in exile with Henry Bolingbroke, helped this future Henry IV to secure the throne, whilst capturing Richard and offering ‘advice’ that, because Richard was a possible threat, he should be removed! Henry IV eventually stripped all his civic powers including cathedral finance from Despenser and handed it all to Thomas.With the Bishop of Norwich disgraced, Erpingham became even more influential in Norfolk.

It was the result of these acts that established a serious breach of trust between Erpingham and Bishop le Despenser, the repercussions of which may have been felt by both Sir Thomas and the Church beyond the year of 1406 when Despenser died. We do not know! However, if this legend ever found root beyond Dispenser and the next two Bishops of Norwich – Alexander Tottington (1407 to 1413) and Richard Courteney (1413 to 1415) – then it must have been with John Wakering (or Wakeryng) who was Bishop of Norwich from 1415 and until 1425. It was during this period in office when the Erpingham Gate was built. So, was any sort of reconciliation between the Church and Sir Thomas settled during Wakering’s period in charge?

Whenever it was, if the wound was ever to be healed then Sir Thomas needed to make some sort of financial gesture to the Church – because that was what they liked! As things turned out, it was said that he came up with a two-pronged solution that, with God’s help, would satisfy both the Church and his belief that heaven awaited those who donated generously to the church; he also must have hoped that his earthly bones would eventually be laid to rest in the Cathedral when his time came. They say that this was the basis on which Sir Thomas Erpingham built his Gate. When Sir Thomas did die in 1428, his bones were indeed buried in the north side of the Chancel of the Cathedral, along with his two wives.

It was a very interesting visit the cathedral and the grounds.