150th Anniversary of British Red Cross Celebrated in 2020

IT was in 1859 that Swiss philanthropist Henry Dunant saw for himself the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in Italy and decided that he had to do something to relief the suffering that soldiers and civilians had to cope with.

In 1863 he founded the Red Cross Society and in 1864 his ideas were incorporated into the Geneva Convention which still survives to the present day.

2020 sees the 150th Anniversary of the British Red Cross which was created following the brutality of the Franco Prussian War and it became a society under Royal Charter in 1908 and continues to be closely connected with the Royal Family as the Queen is Patron and Prince Charles President.

Nowadays it is not so involved with the armed forces (although the Ministry of Defence owns the rights to the actual Red Cross (but is involved in assisting all of those in need in both the UK and across the world.

The British Royal Mint has produced a silver coin to celebrate the anniversary which it retails at £90 although the coin contains just £16.50 worth of silver and the charity receives a donation of £2.70 for each coin sold.

The Spanish Red Cross was founded in 1885 and has to cope with the Flu epidemic which claimed so many lives between 1918 and 1920 and then became so important one hundred years later with the Covid-19 pandemic where it has once again been at the forefront of helping those in need.