and 1941 for the role of deputy mayor, despite being the most qualified candidate by virtue of seniority and ability, which resulted in objections from women's groups. Women's organisations Melville was a driver of the revival of the National Council of Women of New Zealand (NCW) in 1918, having called the first meeting of the Auckland NCW branch in 1917, and the following year attending the preliminary conference in Wellington where the NCW was formally reinstated. She became the first president of the Auckland branch and from 1919 to 1922 was national president. In her work for the NCW she travelled to Europe in 1924 with Elsie Mary Griffin in order to meet other prominent feminists. In the United Kingdom she assisted Lady Astor with her electioneering campaign and stayed with Lady Aberdeen. In 1934 she was a delegate to the conference of the Pan-Pacific and South East Asian Women's Association in Honolulu. During the Depression, she argued that women should pay the same unemployment levy as men in order to qualify for relief work. She also spoke out against an NCW resolution that domestic workers should not pay tax, saying that those who had proposed the resolution had "allowed a lot of sloppy sentiment to influence them ... The women who follow this employment are honoured and valued citizens who should be prepared to bear the burden of tax. If the National Council stands for the equality of women, it cannot endorse this pernicious exception." She also held office in the Auckland Unemployed Women's Emergency Committee during this time, and travelled around the country urging people to buy New Zealand-made goods and support local businesses. She believed strongly that women must work together to advance their cause, and established a number of other women's groups, including the Auckland YWCA Club for businesswomen, of which she was secretary and later vice-president, the Auckland Lyceum Club and the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Women and Children. In 1914 she founded a woman's society called the Auckland Civic League, with the goal of working with the city to improve social conditions. She urged women to take a broad view and "get in personal touch with the women's movement throughout the world". Parliamentary campaigns Melville was active in the campaign that led to the Women's Parliamentary Rights Act 1919, allowing women to stand for Parliament for the first time (despite women