Alfred Burdett Mellor CBE (1915–2010) was an eminent Australian stockbroker and a long-standing figure in the life of Carey Baptist Grammar School. He died at Caritas Christi Hospice aged 95, after what could best be described as a fortunate and productive life.

Mellor served as chairman of the Stock Exchange of Melbourne during the 1960s, a period marked by a rapid increase in public participation in the share market, including the dramatic Poseidon mining boom. He later became chairman of the Australian Associated Stock Exchanges.

Equally significant was his lifelong association with Carey Baptist Grammar School, which began on its opening day and continued for almost nine decades.

Alfred Mellor was born in the front room of the family home in Chaucer Crescent, Canterbury, into a privileged Melbourne family. His mother, Annie Mellor (née Laycock), was a member of the Laycock family, owners of woollen mills in South Melbourne and England that operated under the Laconia brand.

His childhood revolved around family gatherings at his grandparents’ residence, Frognall, a substantial Canterbury home. During the summer months the family stayed at Mileura, a cliff-top house at Portsea. The Mellor family home was surrounded by extensive gardens and included a garage containing the latest Pontiacs or Oldsmobiles, which were refuelled from the family’s own petrol bowser.

The house was within walking distance of Canterbury Baptist Church, where Alfred attended services three times each Sunday—an experience he later remarked exposed him to “enough religion to last a lifetime”.

In 1923 Mellor was among the 68 boys who attended the opening day of Carey Baptist Grammar School in Kew as a foundation student. After leaving school in 1933 he was offered a position at the Laycock woollen mills in Bradford, England, but instead accepted a role as a messenger with the Melbourne stockbroking firm J. B. Were & Sons.

A year later, aged 19, the firm’s proprietor, Staniforth Ricketson, offered him a steamship passage and a position in the London office on the condition that Mellor would fund his own return to Australia. At the age of 21 he returned to Melbourne to resume work with J. B. Were.

In 1939 he married Phyllis Garnham, a stenographer at the firm, and they settled in North Balwyn, then still surrounded by open farmland.

During the Second World War Mellor enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force as a field gunner and served in New Guinea. By the time he was demobilised in late 1945 he had reached the rank of lieutenant.

Before departing for military service he had one son; by the time he returned he was the father of four boys, including twins.

After the war Mellor established his own stockbroking firm. In 1949, aged 33, he was elected to the committee of the Stock Exchange of Melbourne. He became chairman in 1960 and worked with the ANZ Bank on a joint venture to rehouse the exchange in a modern high-rise building at 351 Collins Street, featuring a large pillar-free trading floor with chalkboards for posting bids and trades.

In recognition of his contribution to the financial industry, Mellor was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1966.

His formal association with Carey was renewed in 1949 when he joined the council of the Old Carey Grammarians Association and subsequently became the association’s representative on the school council. He served three terms as president of the OCGA.

Together with Eric Dunshea, then head of Dunlop Australia and president of the school council, Mellor helped lead an ambitious 15-year fundraising campaign under the banners Towards a Greater Carey, Forward Carey, and Onward Carey. These initiatives funded major developments at the school, including a memorial assembly hall, a science building, a new preparatory school, a gymnasium, sports ovals and athletics facilities at Bulleen, and additional classrooms. Later projects included the construction of a chapel and the Mellor Library.

Mellor served on the Carey school council for 42 years and was president from 1972 to 1981. In 1990 he established the school archives with his second wife, Ann (née Walsh), whom he married in 1974 following his divorce from Phyllis in 1971.

He continued to attend the school three days a week until late 2010. As honorary archivist he possessed a prodigious knowledge of former students and of the school’s history. In later years he was widely regarded as the patriarch of Carey Grammar. As one long-serving senior master remarked: “It seems to me that Alfred really never left Carey.”

(Source: John Mellor)