Fichier:StateLibQld 1 69095 Dame Nellie Melba photographed outside the Gresham Hotel, Brisbane, ca. 1909.jpg

English: Dame Nellie Melba photographed outside the Gresham Hotel, Brisbane, ca. 1909.

Nellie Melba was born Helen Porter Mitchell on 19 May 1861 at Richmond, Melbourne. Her Scottish father, David Mitchell, was a building contractor and a good bass vocalist, and her mother, Isabella (nee Dow) was her first music teacher. She was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne and received her early singing tuition from Ellen Christian and the Italian tenor, Pietro Cecchi, who is credited with urging her to make singing her vocation. After the death of her mother in 1881, followed by that of her youngest sister, Nellie accompanied her father to Mackay in Queensland, where he purchased a sugar mill. She married Charles Armstrong in Brisbane in 1882 and they had a son, George, the following year. The marriage ended in divorce in 1900. Nellie Returned to Melbourne in 1884, decided to become a professional singer and gave a number of concerts and recitals. In 1887, Melba made her operatic debut in Brussels as Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto and went on to sing with great success in London, Paris, Milan, New York and other major cities. Within a few years she was regarded as one of the most accomplished and famous sopranos of her time.

Melba's triumphant home-coming in 1902 involved a concert tour of all Australian States and New Zealand. In 1909, she toured the Australian outback. In the same year, she bought a property at Coldstream near Lilydale, Victoria, and employed the architect John Grainger (father of the composer, Percy Grainger) to design Coombe Cottage. Based in Australia during the First World War, Melba worked tirelessly to raise funds for war charities. She also gave wartime concerts in North America. For her services to the war effort, Melba was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1918. During this period she established a singing school at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music in Albert Street, now renamed the Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music, providing her services free of charge.