Mary (May) Hannah Brahe (née Dickson) was born at 23 George Street, East Melbourne (now part of Georgian Court B & B) on 6 November 1884. Her father was Richard Dickson, a Melbourne-born cordial manufacturer. Her mother died when May was 12 years old. She had, however already taught May to play the piano and May’s musical interests were further fostered at Stratherne Girls’ School in Hawthorn.
When her father’s business collapsed in the 1890s recession May left school in 1899 to earn her living as a piano teacher but she continued her own musical education as an accompanist and as a singer.
On 12 November 1903 May married Frederick Charles Brahe and after the birth of her two sons she continued her music as a player, accompanist and song composer. In 1912, encouraged by her publishers (G.L. Allen Co.), she left her children in the care of their father and she went to London where she supported herself playing the piano in cinemas until she established herself as a song writer. Her first success was It’s quiet down here which earned her 2d a copy as royalty. Within two years she was able to finance a trip back to Australia in 1914 to bring her family to England. In 1919 her husband was killed in a motor accident and three years later May married an Australian born actor George Albert Morgan.
Her compositions were mainly sentimental ballads that had popular appeal through the performances of Dame Nellie Melba and Peter Dawson. Among her works I passed by your window, To a miniature and The piper from over the way were often chosen as items in school concerts. Her sister Madge Dickson wrote lyrics for her as did Dorothea McKellar and Walter de la Mare. Helen Taylor wrote the words for May Brahe’s best known song, Bless this house, published in 1927 and made famous by John McCormack in 1937.
May returned to Australia in 1939 and settled in Sydney, living in semi-retirement. She died at Bellevue Hill on 14 August 1956.