Henry Dunant

Henry Dunant (1828-1910) was a Swiss businessman and social activist who became the founding figure of the International Committee of the Red Cross. After witnessing the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in 1859, where thousands of wounded soldiers were left largely without care, he published a firsthand account, A Memory of Solferino, calling for the creation of national relief societies to aid the wounded in wartime regardless of nationality and for international agreements to protect them. His advocacy directly led to the founding of the Red Cross in 1863 and to the first Geneva Convention in 1864. In 1901 he was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of this work, despite having spent much of his later life in poverty after earlier business failures.