Hyde Dunn
| Hyde Dunn | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | John Henry Hyde Dunn March 5, 1855 London, England |
| Died | February 17, 1941 Sydney, Australia |
| Resting place | Woronora Cemetery |
| NSA member | Australia and NZ, 1934 - 1935 |
| Title(s) | Hand of the Cause |
| Appointed by | Shoghi Effendi, posthumously |
| Spouse(s) | Clara Dunn |
| Parents | Arthur Dunn and Louisa Jane Knapp |
John Henry Hyde Dunn (March 5, 1855 - February 17, 1941)[1] was a Hand of the Cause of God appointed posthumously by Shoghi Effendi. He and his wife Clara were the first Bahá’ís in Australia and among the earliest Bahá’ís to teach in New Zealand.[2]
Background[edit]
Hyde Dunn was born in London on March 5, 1855. He was the youngest of twelve children and his father was a consulting pharmacist. In his youth he worked as a sales agent in England and France and later emigrated to the west coast of the United States to work as a sales representative for the Borden Milk company.
His first encounter with the Faith was in Seattle in 1905, hearing Nathan Ward Fitzgerald quoting words Bahá’u’lláh had spoken to Edward Granville Brown, "Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.". He soon became a Bahá’í and began to travel and teach with Fitzgerald, and was one of the earliest Bahá’ís to teach the faith in Nevada.
In 1911 Hyde visited San Francisco and attended lectures on the Faith given by Lua Getsinger. He visited Lua as often as his schedule allowed and also met Thornton Chase while in San Francisco.[3] He wrote many letters to Thornton concerning the nature of fear, the station of the Persian Bábí and Bahá’í martyrs in comparison with the American Bahá’ís and the resurrection of Christian teachings through the Bahá’í revelation. Chase wrote to Hyde "Your letters are such a pleasure to me ... I see shining through them the earnest soul, which has tasted of heavenly food and found it so delicious that it ever hungers for the Table of the Lord."[4]
In 1912 he prayed for an entire night that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would visit America. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited later that year and Hyde met him in San Francisco.[5]
Pioneering[edit]
In 1919 Hyde and his wife Clara Dunn became aware of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's call in his "Tablets of the Divine Plan" for Bahá’í's to teach the Faith in countries that he himself was unable to visit. The couple decided to travel to Australia, a country with no Bahá’í's. Despite Hyde's success as a salesman, he and his wife had little money as they spent much of their income travelling to teach the faith, and Clara suggested that he travel to Australia alone, they contacted ‘Abdu’l-Bahá who suggested that both of them should travel to Australia.
The Dunn's spent two months in Hawaii and briefly stopped in Samoa before arriving in Sydney, Australia on April 10, 1920. They had little money, and Hyde later said "We arrived in Sydney . . . with naught but faith in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá,".[6] Clara found work first, but Hyde eventually found employment as a travelling salesman with the Bacchus Marsh Milk Company, which was acquired by Nestle in 1921,[7] within a year of their arrival and taught the Faith in many rural towns during the week, while his wife Clara invited people to weekend meetings held in Sydney at which he spoke. Due to his outstanding performance as a salesman Hyde was made a national salesperson, and by 1923 he had visited 225 towns across Australia.
Hyde also taught the Faith via correspondence, in January 1921 a letter from Hyde to an interested person was published in an Adelaide newspaper. An excerpt:
"Dear Madam - It was a great happiness to hear from our friend Miss Clark, of Adelaide, that you are interested in the glad tidings of the Bahia(sic) teachings. There has never been any time in history when the nations of the world were in such desperate need of an uplift from the blighted and suffering condition in which the people find themselves engulfed. The material man finds himself in extremities after ages of war and self-interests, and is wondering what the matter is with the old world-he is trying to find a way out and see light ahead, but is still groping in the dark, wondering what is ahead of him.
The hour has struck and we are all at the dawn of a new day. The revelation of Baha' O' Llah(sic), proclaims the oneness of the world of humanity-that the age of unity has arrived-superstitions and prejudices of whatever nature must be forgotten, that the foundation of religion is one and must be the cause of unity among the people-not discord-that everyone must make an independent investigation of the reality for himself, and not be blind imitators of their forefathers. Equality between men and woman be established; this is what is stirring the world today."[8]
Although the Dunn's initially found it difficult to bring people to the faith, by the end of 1922 two Australians had declared. The first was Oswald Whitaker, an optometrist who became a Bahá’í after meeting Hyde in Lismore, and he became the leader of a regular study group established in Sydney.[9] The Dunn's then moved to Melbourne where Effie Baker, a photographer and model builder, became the second Australian Bahá’í, accepting the faith after hearing Hyde speak at Melbourne’s New Civilization Center. Australia's first Local Spiritual Assembly was formed in Melbourne in December 1923.
At the end of 1922 the Dunn's used holiday time to travel to Auckland, New Zealand where they were surprised to find that Margaret Stevenson, the only Bahá’í in the country, had been living there for some time. The Dunn's had more success teaching the Faith in New Zealand, with twenty people attending Hyde's first talk in the country. Clara said that "We seemed to have done more in two weeks here than we did in Australia in two years.". Hyde returned to Australia due to work commitments after one month and Clara remained in Auckland until April the following year. The Auckland Local Spiritual Assembly was established in 1923.
Hyde also visited Adelaide, South Australia in 1923, and from 1923 to 1924 he and Clara traveled and helped establish Local Spiritual Assemblies in both Adelaide and Perth.[10] In 1926 Hyde visited Brisbane, Queensland, with Clara. People became Bahá’í's in both states following the visits.[11][12]
In 1931 Keith Ransom-Kehler was sent to Australia by the Guardian to deepen the Bahá’í community on the administrative order. While Hyde and Keith liked each other, some tension arose due to Keith's analytical and systematic approach and Hyde's imprecise and lax approach to teaching the Faith.[13]
Later Years[edit]
The National Spiritual Assembly of Australia and New Zealand was formed in 1934 with Hyde serving as an inaugural member. He suffered a stroke in 1935 which caused his eyesight to deteriorate, limiting his capacity to serve the institution, however he recovered his general health and continued to use his typewriter even though he could not read what he had written.[14] He was able to lay the cornerstone of the Yerrinbool Bahá’í Summer School on Oct 11, 1936 and he attended the first Summer School held there in 1938.[15]
Hyde passed away in Sydney on 7 February, 1941. After his death Shoghi Effendi described him as "Beloved Father Dunn" and "Australia’s spiritual conqueror" and in a telegram stated "MAGNIFICENT CAREER VETERAN WARRIOR FAITH BAHÁ’U’LLÁH REFLECTS PUREST LUSTER WORLD HISTORIC MISSION CONFERRED AMERICAN COMMUNITY BY ‘ABDU’L-BAHÁ."
He was posthumously appointed a Hand of the Cause by Shoghi Effendi in 1952.
Personal Life[edit]
Hyde Dunn was married three times. His first wife was Louisa Jane Knapp, whom he married in London on April 6, 1882.[16] They had two children: Harry Douglas Dunn (b. 1885) and Bertha Louie Dunn (b. 1887). After moving to America, he met and married Fannie Scobell Chapman (née Oliver)[17], who also became a Baha'i some time after Hyde. Fannie passed away in 1916.[18]
On July 9, 1917, Hyde married Clara Holder Davis in Santa Clara, California.[19] They had met about ten years prior when Hyde was passing through Walla Walla, Washington, where Clara worked for the local Viavi Company office; he invited her to a local Bahá’í meeting. They did not see each other again until another chance meeting in 1912, at the house where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was staying in San Francisco.[2]
References[edit]
- ↑ Rabbani, R. (Ed.) (1992). The Ministry of the Custodians 1957-1963. Bahá’í World Centre. p. xxiii. ISBN 085398350X.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Hassall, Graham (30 January 2000). "Dunn, Clara and Hyde". Bahá’í Library Online. Bahá’í Library Online. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
- ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1945). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. Wilmette, Ill. Volume 9 (1940-1944), Pg(s) 593. View as PDF.
- ↑ Thornton Chase, letter to Hyde Dunn, 1 Feb. 1911, Thornton Chase Papers, National Bahá’í Archives, United States, Wilmette, IL
- ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1945). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. Wilmette, Ill. Volume 9 (1940-1944), Pg(s) 591. View as PDF.
- ↑ Holley, Horace (1933). "Survey of Current Bahá'í Activities in the East and the West". The Bahá’í World. Bahá’í Publishing Committee. 4: 83–84.
- ↑ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/40131503
- ↑ Daily Herald, Adelaide, SA, 10 Jan 1921, p 3: http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/107247587?searchTerm=hyde%20dunn&searchLimits=#
- ↑ "... To Follow a Dreamtime", National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Australia, 1970, p 5
- ↑ https://bahai-library.com/hassall_bahai_community_randwick
- ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1976). Bahá’í World Centre. Haifa. Volume 15 (1968-1973), Pg(s) 490. View as PDF.
- ↑ https://www.bahai.org.au/Meet/BahaisinMyState/Queensland.aspx
- ↑ Ruhe-Schoen, Janet A Love Which Does Not Wait, 1998
- ↑ http://www.bahai-encyclopedia-project.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62:dunn-clara-and-j-hyde&catid=37:biography
- ↑ The Bahá’í World, An International Record. (1939). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. New York City, NY. Volume 7 (1936-1938), Pg(s) 514. View as PDF.
- ↑ "London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921", database with images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 May 2017), Henry John Dunn and Lucy Evelyn Knight, 6 April 1882, St. Jude's Church, East Brixton, Surrey. London Metropolitan Archives, Saint Jude, East Brixton, Register of marriages, P85/JUD/A/02, Item 001
- ↑ "California, Marriage Records from Select Counties, 1850-1941", database with images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 May 2017), Hyde J. Dunn and Fannie Chapman, 9 Nov 1906, Alameda, California. Marriage records, select counties and years. California State Archives, Sacramento, California.
- ↑ "Mrs. Fannie Dunn." Star of the West, May 17, 1916. April 22, 2013. Accessed April 20, 2017. https://bahai.works/Star_of_the_West/Volume_7/Issue_4.
- ↑ "California, County Marriages, 1850-1952," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZ3F-7GN : 28 November 2014), Hyde John Dunn and Clara Davis, 09 Jul 1917; citing Santa Clara, California, United States, county courthouses, California; FHL microfilm 1,468,525.
External Links[edit]
- John Henry Hyde Dunn on WikiTree - family tree
