Cavell was born on 4 December 1865 in Swardeston, a village near Norwich, where her father was vicar for 45 years.
She was the eldest of the four children of the Reverend Frederick Cavell (1824–1910) and his wife Louisa Sophia Warming (1835–1918).
Edith's siblings were; Florence Mary (b. 1867), Mary Lilian (b. 1870) and John Frederick S. (1872–1923).

She was educated at Norwich High School for Girls, then boarding schools in Clevedon, Somerset and Peterborough (Laurel Court).

After a period as a governess, including for a family in Brussels from 1890 to 1895, she returned home to care for her father during a serious illness.
The experience led her to become a nurse after her father's recovery.
In April 1896, at the age of 30, Cavell applied to become a nurse probationer at the London Hospital under Matron Eva Luckes.
She worked in various hospitals in England, including Shoreditch Infirmary (since renamed St Leonard's Hospital).
As a private travelling nurse, treating patients in their homes, Cavell travelled to tend patients with cancer, gout, pneumonia, pleurisy, eye issues and appendicitis.

Cavell was sent to assist with the typhoid outbreak in Maidstone during 1897.
 Along with other staff she was awarded the Maidstone Medal.

In 1906 she took a temporary post as matron of the Manchester and Salford Sick and Poor and Private Nursing Institution and worked there for about nine months.
While there she worshipped at Sacred Trinity Church on Chapel Street, Salford and her name is included on the church war memorial.
On the centenary of her execution, an event funded by the University of Salford took place at Sacred Trinity where historian Sir Ian Kershaw and Christine Hallett of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery, spoke.

In 1907, Cavell was recruited by Dr Antoine Depage to be matron of a newly established nursing school, L'École Belge d'Infirmières Diplômées (or the Berkendael Medical Institute) on the Rue de la Culture (now Rue Franz Merjay), in Ixelles, Brussels.
By 1910, "Miss Cavell 'felt that the profession of nursing had gained sufficient foothold in Belgium to warrant the publishing of a professional journal' and, therefore, launched the nursing journal, L'infirmière".
Within a year, she was training nurses for three hospitals, twenty-four schools, and thirteen kindergartens in Belgium.

When the First World War broke out, she was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk.
She returned to Brussels, where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.
Cavell was born on 4 December 1865 in Swardeston, a village near Norwich, where her father was vicar for 45 years. She was the eldest of the four children of the Reverend Frederick Cavell (1824–1910) and his wife Louisa Sophia Warming (1835–1918). Edith's siblings were; Florence Mary (b. 1867), Mary Lilian (b. 1870) and John Frederick S. (1872–1923).
She was educated at Norwich High School for Girls, then boarding schools in Clevedon, Somerset and Peterborough (Laurel Court).
After a period as a governess, including for a family in Brussels from 1890 to 1895, she returned home to care for her father during a serious illness. The experience led her to become a nurse after her father's recovery. In April 1896, at the age of 30, Cavell applied to become a nurse probationer at the London Hospital under Matron Eva Luckes. She worked in various hospitals in England, including Shoreditch Infirmary (since renamed St Leonard's Hospital). As a private travelling nurse, treating patients in their homes, Cavell travelled to tend patients with cancer, gout, pneumonia, pleurisy, eye issues and appendicitis.
Cavell was sent to assist with the typhoid outbreak in Maidstone during 1897.  Along with other staff she was awarded the Maidstone Medal.
In 1906 she took a temporary post as matron of the Manchester and Salford Sick and Poor and Private Nursing Institution and worked there for about nine months. While there she worshipped at Sacred Trinity Church on Chapel Street, Salford and her name is included on the church war memorial. On the centenary of her execution, an event funded by the University of Salford took place at Sacred Trinity where historian Sir Ian Kershaw and Christine Hallett of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery, spoke.
In 1907, Cavell was recruited by Dr Antoine Depage to be matron of a newly established nursing school, L'École Belge d'Infirmières Diplômées (or the Berkendael Medical Institute) on the Rue de la Culture (now Rue Franz Merjay), in Ixelles, Brussels. By 1910, "Miss Cavell 'felt that the profession of nursing had gained sufficient foothold in Belgium to warrant the publishing of a professional journal' and, therefore, launched the nursing journal, L'infirmière". Within a year, she was training nurses for three hospitals, twenty-four schools, and thirteen kindergartens in Belgium.
When the First World War broke out, she was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk. She returned to Brussels, where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.
Edith Cavell