Charles Dunning, the Englishman who became the Knight of
Bahá'u'lláh for the Orkney Islands at the age of seventy. (Violette Nakhjavani,
‘The Great African Safari’)
One of Rúhíyyih Khánum's favourite stories was about the
Guardian and Charles Dunning. Charlie Dunning was a wonderful Bahá'í, a little
man, and he looked like Popeye. And at the table, the Guardian would sit here
and Charlie would sit there at the end of the table because he was a Knight of
Bahá'u'lláh, and they would lean towards each other and talk, and he would wave
his finger at the Shoghi Effendi's nose and say "Guardian. they tell me so
and so", and the Guardian would lean towards him and answer, and they
would talk in this way. The Guardian loved Charles Dunning. He saw the beauty
and the spirit in Charlie although most people would think he was a funny
little man. And the thing that struck me after Charlie had been on pilgrimage,
and it's made me think a lot about the way one's appearance mirrors one's soul,
you might say, because Charlie spoke at the National Convention about his
pilgrimage, and the thing that struck me was that superficially Charlie was an
ugly little man, but when he was talking he was beautiful. Really beautiful.
And he hadn't changed, his features were the same, but this was a beautiful
person talking, and I think his soul was as it were reflecting what the
Guardian had seen in him. (Ian Semple, from a talk: ‘The Guardianship and the
Universal House of Justice’)
Edmund (Ted) Cardell became a Bahá'í in Canada in 1948 and
returned to his father's farm in England some time later. He pioneered to Kenya
in October 1951 where he was a founder member of the first local Assembly in
Nairobi. He became Knight of Bahá'u'lláh for South West Africa in 1953 and
returned to England in 1963. He was elected to the National Assembly in 1973.
(Biographical Notes; 'Unfolding Destiny’)
