Born on October 18, 1853, into a prominent Hamburg merchant and senatorial family, Werner von Melle was a central figure in shaping, developing, and promoting the educational system of Hamburg. Thinking strategically and well-connected, he began paving the way for his vision of a Hamburg university as early as 1891.

His years of efforts in the realms of science and education paid off: on March 28, 1919, the first democratically elected Hamburg parliament decided to found the university.

In 1919, the University of Hamburg awarded him an honorary doctorate in philosophy, and in 1921, after his retirement from the Senate, the title "Rector magnificus honoris causa". In further recognition of his contributions and merits to the intellectual life of Hamburg, he was also appointed an honorary doctor of political science in 1928. Until his death on February 18, 1937, von Melle remained closely connected to the young university and the city of Hamburg. In a testamentary disposition, Werner von Melle bequeathed "a large number of private letters addressed to me from old and new times by scholars, merchants, politicians, poets, artists, etc. (both from outside Hamburg and Hamburgians)" as well as "a large collection of cabinet photographs of more or less significant personalities, mostly with their own signature" to the State and University Library Hamburg (SUB).