Dunant, Jean Henri (1828–1910)

Swiss philanthropist, originator of the international relief agency the Red Cross. At the Battle of Solferino in 1859 he helped tend the wounded, and in Un Souvenir de Solferino (1862) he proposed the establishment of an international body for the aid of the wounded – an idea that was realized in the Geneva Convention in 1864. He shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1901 with Frédéric Passy for his founding of the Red Cross.