Henry Dunant

Swiss businessman and co-founder of the Red Cross (1828-1910)

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Switzerland rank#40

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Switzerland rank#40
Founders rank#53
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Lived 1828–1910, aged 82Switzerland

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Wikipedia
93 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in Switzerland
#40
Founders
Era
1828–1910
Aged 82
Awards
12
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

He walked onto a battlefield still warm with bodies, organized strangers into an impromptu relief corps, then went home and wrote the book that invented the Red Cross. The first Nobel Peace Prize went to a man who'd spent decades broke and forgotten.

Biography

About

Born in Geneva on 8 May 1828 to a devout Calvinist family, Dunant was a businessman with interests in French Algeria and Tunisia when a detour changed everything. In 1859, traveling to petition Napoleon III, he arrived at Solferino in northern Italy just after battle and found thousands of wounded soldiers abandoned without care. Horrified, he rallied locals to tend the dying regardless of side. Back in Geneva he published A Memory of Solferino, calling for a neutral organization to care for the war-wounded. In February 1863 he joined a five-person committee that became the International Commi…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Henry Dunant

Henry Dunant

said1862

By Thy power, let there be peace, O God!

— p. 11

Henry Dunant

said1862

In one of the Cremona hospitals, an Italian doctor had said: "We keep the good things for our friends of the Allied Army, and give our enemies the bare necessities.

— p. 97

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

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