Author: Lunn, Joseph
Biography:
LUNN, Joseph (1784-1863: ODNB)
A prolific writer for the London stage in the 1820s and 30s, he was born in Woolwich, Kent, on 9 Apr. 1784 to Mary (Messenger) and William Lunn, who had married at St. Mary Magdalene there on 13 Sept. 1778. Nothing is known of his education. On 21 Jan. 1815 he married Elizabeth Wallbridge (1784-1853) at St. Luke’s, Charlton by Greenwich, Kent; they had two sons, one of whom became a writer and the other a musician. Lunn’s first venture was a burlesque version of The Sorrows of Werther, for Covent Garden, in 1818. He went on to write many farces, burlettas, comedies, interludes, and musical entertainments for the major London theatres: the ones specifically mentioned as enduring successes in the obituaries many years later were Family Jars (1822) and Fish Out of Water (1823). His last original work published separately dates from 1836, after which he seems to have devoted most of his time to charitable activities and to the Dramatic Authors Society of which he was a founding member. In the 1851 census, from the family’s long-established residence on Craven St., London, he gave as his occupation “assistant commission and secretary of a public charity”—i.e. the Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts. Towards the end of his life he moved to Brighton, where he died on 12 Dec. 1863, leaving effects valued at under £1500 to his two sons, who were his executors. (ODNB 7 Feb. 2024; findmypast.com 7 Feb. 2024; Morning Post 16 Dec. 1863; GM Jan. 1864, 134) HJ