Melville was born Gertrude Mary Day on 7 October 1884 to parents John Joseph Day, a sawyer, and Mary Ann Dunbar in Port Macquarie, New South Wales. She moved to Sydney to attend the St Peter's convent school in the inner-city suburb of Surry Hills. In 1903 she married Arthur Melville, a New Zealand labourer, with whom she had five sons.[1]
Melville became a member of the Labor Party (ALP) in 1904 and campaigned extensively with other party members for women and children's rights. In the periods of 1922–26 and 1950–52, she was a member of the party's central executive committee.[1] She stood as an ALP candidate for the Eastern Suburbs district in the 1925 NSW election, but was unsuccessful.[2] She was again unsuccessful in 1932 election for Hurstville.[3][4] Throughout the 1940s, she worked as a justice of the peace, a member of the New South Wales Board of Health, an alderman of the Cabramatta and Canley Vale municipal council, vice-president of the Country Women's Association's Cabramatta branch, and director of Fairfield Hospital.[1] She was Mayor of Cabramatta–Canley Vale from 1945 to 1948.[4]
In 1952 Melville was nominated by Labor to fill a vacancy in the New South Wales Legislative Council caused by the death of Liberal member Ernest Farrar.[5] At the time seats in the council were elected at a joint sitting of both houses of parliament.[6] Melville was re-elected a twelve-year term in 1957.[7] In her five years in the council, she earned a reputation as the "grand old lady of the Labor Party".[4][5] She dedicated her time in parliament to being a "spokesman for the women" and "the little people", supporting equal pay for women, child welfare, housing and hospitals.[1]
^ abcAlafaci, Annette (1 February 2006). "Melville, Gertrude Mary (1884–1959)". Australian Women's Archives Project Web Site. National Foundation for Australian Women. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
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