Samuel LunnPrint Page 
The monument over the grave commemorates Samuel Lunn for his services to World War One returned soldiers and their families. Samuel Lunn died in 1923.
Samuel Lunn raised an equivalent of almost $500,000 in today’s money for returned soldiers and their families. He established a Welcome Home Fund for the Soldiers Benefit, one of a number of movements such as the Cheer Up Society and the Australian Comfort Fund that mobilised to raise the spirits of the battle wounded. He was given an MBE for his services and his grave was partly funded by the soldiers he sought to help.
Sammy Lunn was born in Kent, England, and migrated with his parents to Adelaide in 1874. He married Sarah Marsh in the early 1900s and they bought a house at 85 Day Terrace, Croydon. They ran a shop at Kilkenny and it was from there Lunn would walk an ice-cream truck to Semaphore. He became very well known in the suburbs and on the beach at Semaphore, where his ice-cream stall was always surrounded and sold out first.
His love of helping others continued when the father of four was denied entry into the armed forces due to his ill health. He was often pictured, dressed in a bowler hat, and three-piece suit, sitting among soldiers of South Australian based battalions awaiting deployment overseas.
On the July 19, 1919 the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Association presented Lunn with a framed certificate of appreciation for his work. Two years later, while Lunn was on a publicly funded trip to tour European war graves, the Prince of Wales awarded him an MBE for his charitable work.
Over nine months Sammy and his wife visited hundreds of cemeteries in Belgium and France and scribbled the names of South Australian soldiers and their grave locations in a diary, honouring the requests of relatives back home. Sammy also placed wreaths on the final resting places of South Australia soldiers. More than 2000 people gathered at Outer Harbour, cheering and shouting, upon Sammy’s return.
His funeral was unlike any seen for a South Australian civilian. Shopkeepers closed their shutters, flags flew at half mast, and thousands lined the streets as the mile-long cortege moved from Sammy’s house to the Adelaide Railway Station and to the West Terrace Cemetery. More than two thousand returned soldiers, headed by their bands and battalion colours formed a guard of honour in tribute to the “Digger’s friend”. He is buried in a grave next to those of nearly 300 Australian Imperial Force personnel in a mark of respect for the “Digger’s Pal”.
On Tuesday evening at the State Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League headquarters, in Angas-street, a meeting of the Lunn memorial was held. Arrangements were completed for the unveiling of the memorial to Mr Samuel Lunn in the West-terrace Cemetery by the State president (Mr. W. F. J. McCann) on May 16.
Advertiser (Adelaide), 5 May 1926.
Location
| Address: | West Terrace, West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide, 5000 |
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| State: | SA |
| Area: | AUS |
| GPS Coordinates: | Lat: -34.936193 Long: 138.583496 Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate. |
Details
| Monument Type: | Grave |
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| Monument Theme: | People |
| Sub-Theme: | Community |
Dedication
| Actual Monument Dedication Date: | Sunday 16th May, 1926 |
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In loving memory of Samuel Lunn, M. B. E.
Who died at his residence Esplanade Grange September 4th 1923 in his 59th year.
His memory lives within the hearts of those who knew his worth.
Plaque :
Great War 1914 - 1919
Erected by the returned sailors soldiers and nurses of South Australia
To the memory of the Diggers pal Sammy Lunn M. B. E.
