Mellish, Humphrey Pickard Wolfgang

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: R. Blake Brown, “MELLISH, HUMPHREY PICKARD WOLFGANG,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mellish_humphrey_pickard_wolfgang_16E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Teacher, lawyer, and judge; b. 13 May 1862 in Lot 50, P.E.I., youngest child of James Lewis Mellish and Margaret Sophia Murray; m. 25 Oct. 1898 Margaret Mabel Wilmot White, cousin of Albert Scott White, in Springfield, Kings County, N.B.; they had no children; d. 19 June 1937 in Halifax.
    • Prince Edward Island farmers James Lewis and Margaret Sophia Mellish had limited financial means, yet a daughter, Mary, became a leading educator at the ladies’ academy associated with Mount Allison College in Sackville, N.B., and their son Humphrey Mellish studied at Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown before attending Dalhousie College in Halifax. He completed a ba in 1882, and spent time at the University of London, where he matriculated in the honours division in 1883. After returning to Nova Scotia, he taught mathematics at Pictou Academy from 1885 to 1888. He obtained his llb from Dean Richard Chapman Weldon’s recently established Dalhousie law school in 1890. A talented public speaker, he delivered valedictory addresses at both his arts and law convocations. 
    • A Liberal, Mellish showed no interest in pursuing electoral office. On 11 Feb. 1918 Sir Robert Laird Borden’s Union government appointed him to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. Two years later, on 13 Oct. 1920, he was named chair of a royal commission to investigate the Provincial Highway Board. Despite evidence of partisan politics in the board’s operations, the commission exonerated George Henry Murray’s government of any wrongdoing. Mellish also served as a deputy local judge in admiralty and a local judge in admiralty in 1920 and 1921 respectively.
    • Despite his contemporaries’ assessment, historians have been highly critical of Mellish because of his decisions against organized labour. In the 1920s and 1930s class conflict marred the province’s coal and steel industries. These tensions spilled into the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, which had several judges with corporate ties. On 4 March 1924 mp James Shaver Woodsworth declared in the House of Commons that he had been told “corporation influence on the bench was so strong that the court is looked upon by labour as a company department.”
    • The Halifax Chronicle extolled Mellish for having had “one of the most brilliant and useful legal careers in the history of this province,” but his record of judicial partiality in the labour clashes of Nova Scotia during the interwar period has overshadowed his reputation for legal skill.
  • Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=3699
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/207246036/humphrey-pickard_wolfgang-mellish