Alice Fitzgerald's Edith Cavell Memorial Nurse medal

Alice Fitzgerald's Edith Cavell Memorial Nurse medal

From February 1916 to December 1917, Alice Fitzgerald (class of 1906) was the Edith Cavell Memorial Nurse sponsored by a Massachusetts chapter of the American Red Cross to serve with the British Expeditionary Forces Nursing Service Reserve at Boulogne-sur-Mer Hospital No. 13 in France. Cavell was a British nurse working in German-occupied Belgium who was executed in 1915 by the Germans for helping 200 Allied soldiers escape. This medal was created for Alice Fitzgerald by Boston sculpture A.H. Atkins and manufactured by Gorham Manufacturing Co. Circular sterling silver medallion with bas-relief image of Edith Cavell tending to a wounded soldier whose head rests in her lap as she feeds him; suspended from a sterling silver pin in the shape of an eagle with its wings raised, holdings arrows and a branch in his talons, with a shield on his body with a Latin red enamel cross. Inscriptions Front: "EDITH CAVELL MEMORIAL" in raised lettering; Back: "ALICE L. F. FITZGERALD/EDITH CAVELL NURSE/FROM/MASSACHUSETTS/FEBRUARY 19, 1916" engraved; marked on the rim: "A. H. ATKINS.MCXVI" and "STERLING" along with three punched hallmarks.

A.H. Atkins
Gorham Manufacturing Co.

1916

Length: 3 in
Diameter: 2 in

Artifact 1595A

medal