[3] Dunn first found employment with Ellerker and Kilburn[4] of Melbourne, then Oakden, Addison and Kemp[5] for whom he travelled to Auckland, New Zealand to design a health retreat at the hot springs in Waiwera.
His major project in this period was a large flour mill at Port Adelaide for his father's family business;[6][7] brother Alfred Calvert Dunn was engineer.
[1] In 1899 Dunn collaborated with Gilbert Place architect Henry Ernest Fuller on a design for the new YWCA building (not adopted) and the Adelaide Stock Exchange on McHenry Street, for which they won both first and second prizes,[14] and which was built in 1901.
[15] Hedley at some stage joined John Alexander Dowie's Christian Catholic Apostolic Church, and in 1903 traveled to Zion, Illinois, headquarters of the sect.
[citation needed] His involvement with the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church extended to giving public lectures in the Federation Hall, Grote Street in the early 20th century.
They had at least one son: Remarkably for an architect, his home, though on a reasonably large block in a highly desirable location, was extraordinarily modest, little more than a "shack" or "weekender",[19] in contrast to the grandiosity of "The Laurels" of his grandfather.