To celebrate the 125 anniversary of women's suffrage in New Zealand, every day this week we're exploring the stories behind great Auckland women and the impact they’ve made on our society. You can also check out the buildings around the city honouring them.
Kicking off the week – Ellen Melville.
An independent professional woman who vigorously sought full participation in public life. – Sandra Coney
Ellen Melville during the 1920s. Photo Credit: Sir George Grey Special Collections.
The life and times of Ellen Melville
Eliza ‘Ellen’ Melville was a trailblazer along many paths for New Zealand women.
She was the first elected woman councillor in New Zealand, becoming an Auckland City Councillor in 1913 – seven years before she had become the second woman in New Zealand to be admitted to the bar and establish herself in sole practice.
As a pioneering female lawyer, Ellen was passionate about the advancement of women, using her role to advocate for women and bring women’s organisations into the public eye.
Alongside fellow like-minded women Rosetta Baume and Emily Maguire, Ellen Melville also established the Civil League to encourage women to stand for public office.
In City Council, she battled to overcome resistance in her position, with journalist Robin Hyde noting her male colleagues initially viewed her as a 'rather an improper joke', but she was ‘ultimately respected for her logical mind and abundant common sense’.
"The contributions she made to debates were always models of their kind, brief, completely thought-out and containing original ideas of real value."
Ellen Melville represented her constituents for 33 years, until her death in 1946.
Legacy and memory
Aptly, Ellen Melville began laying the work for her own memory, when she led a committee for a planned memorial to Auckland pioneering women in 1939. After her death in 1946, a group of Auckland women’s organisations kicked off fundraising to combine the pioneer women’s memorial with a memorial to Melville herself.
It took some years, but in 1962 the Pioneer Women’s and Ellen Melville Memorial Hall was opened in Auckland, including meeting rooms for women's organisations, a crèche and displays recognizing the pioneer women of Auckland.
The building was refurbished and reopened by an all-female project team as the Ellen Melville Centre in 2017, going on to win multiple architectural and design awards.
