Edith Cavell, the British nurse executed during the First World War, is to be commemorated on a new £5 coin marking the Centenary.
It will be issued in 2015, the 100th anniversary of her execution by the Germans while she was working in occupied Belgium.
Campaigners have been calling for Edith Cavell to be honoured on a British Centenary coin.
Announcing the decision, UK Treasury and Women’s Minister Nicky Morgan said it was right to honour the Norfolk-born nurse as a British hero: “She showed true bravery by helping injured soldiers, regardless of their nationality.
“She risked her life to help Allied forces escape and in doing so paid the ultimate price.
“It is important that we remember the sacrifices made by so many people in different ways during the war.”
Edith Cavell’s last words, engraved on her memorial in London
Despite international appeals for clemency, Cavell was shot by a German firing squad in Brussels on 12th October 1915.
The coin honouring her will be issued by the Royal Mint as part of a commemorative set marking the outbreak of the First World War.
More than 110,000 people have signed an online petition calling on the UK government to remember Edith Cavell on a £2 Centenary coin.
The choice of Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, the face of Britain’s 1914 recruiting campaign, for the first of the Centenary coins was criticised by some as ‘jingoistic.’
The only other non-Royal woman to have featured on a British commemorative coin is the Crimean War nurse, Florence Nightingale.
Source: UK Treasury
Images: Peter Alhadeff, Centenary News
Posted by: Peter Alhadeff, Centenary News