Inès de Bourgoing

Inès-Marie de Bourgoing (1862 to 1953), also known as Inès Fortoul and Inès Lyautey, was a pioneering French nurse and an organizer of Red Cross nursing. Born into the nobility and widowed after her first marriage, she took up nursing once her children were raised, joined the first formal nursing classes offered in Paris and went abroad with the Société de Secours aux Blessés Militaires, a forerunner of the French Red Cross. In 1907 she established an infirmary in Casablanca, and she later helped with relief after an earthquake in Sicily. After marrying Hubert Lyautey in 1909 she divided her time between France and Morocco, founding hospitals, maternity clinics and child care centres in both countries and serving as a hospital administrator in both world wars. She led the Ladies Committee of the society from 1926 to 1939, became Director General of the Ladies of the French Red Cross after the 1940 merger, and was the first woman made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour.