The daughter of Frank Dawson and Ida (née Bell) Davis, Mervyn Davis served with the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force during World War II. Following the war she commenced a Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme (CRTS) course at Burnley Horticultural College, Victoria. Davis graduated dux of the course in 1946. She was appointed technical assistant in the herbarium at the Melbourne and then the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. During 1956 to 1957, Davis studied under Brian Hackett at Durham University England, and gained a Postgraduate Diploma in Landscape Design. In 1957 she was awarded the first Fellowship of the International Agricultural Study Centre, Wageningen University, Netherlands, in Landscape Design and Allied subjects.

Davis was employed as a landscape architect with Buchan, Laird and Buchan Architects and Engineers, Melbourne, from 1959 to 1961. She initiated moves to establish the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. In 1969 she became the body's first fellow and in 1980 she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). Davis worked as a private consultant before being employed as a landscape architect with the Commonwealth Department of Housing and Construction in 1963. Her work included landscape developments at the airports of Perth, Launceston, Canberra, Melbourne and Hobart. She retired from the department in 1980.

In her retirement Davis continued working with Dr Jim Willis and Daphne Pearson on the catalogue of Australian Botanists and others who have contributed to the Collections and recording of plants in Australia.

Events

1942 - 1945

War Service with the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force

1951 - 1956

Technical Assistant at the Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens and National Herbarium Victoria

1956 - 1957

Post Graduate Diploma in Landscape Design, Durham University, England

1957

First Fellow of the International Agricultural Study Centre Wageningen University Netherlands in Landscape Design and allied subjects

1959 - 1969

Australian Delegate to the International Federation of Landscape Architects

1960

Initiated moves to establish Australian Institute of Landscape Architects

1963 - 1980

Full-time employee of the Commonwealth Department, Central Office, Melbourne

1964

First woman Fellow of the Australian Institute of Parks and Recreation

1969

First Fellow of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects

Sources used to compile this entry: Draper, W J (ed.), Who's who in Australia 1983, 24 edn, The Herald and Weekly Times, Melbourne, 1983, 960 pp. p. 241.; National Herbarium (Victoria).