Théodore Maunoir

Théodore Maunoir (1806 to 1869) was a Swiss surgeon from Geneva and one of the five founders of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Born into a wealthy family of doctors, he followed family tradition by studying medicine in England and France and took his doctorate in surgery in 1833. Back in Geneva he sat on the city's Commission for Hygiene and Health and on the Geneva Society for Public Welfare. After Henry Dunant published A Memory of Solferino in 1862, Maunoir joined Dunant, Gustave Moynier, Guillaume-Henri Dufour and Louis Appia in the Committee of Five founded in February 1863, which was soon renamed the International Committee for Relief to Wounded Soldiers and later became the Red Cross. He argued for turning Dunant's ideas into a broad social movement rather than an arrangement made only with powerful political and military figures, and at the international conference of October 1863 his persuasive speech helped avert a collapse. He remained a member until his sudden death in 1869.