Thomas Robert Melville (1930–2017) was an American priest, activist and writer. He was born in Boston Massachusetts on December 5, 1930,[1] and he wanted to be a priest since he was five.[2] He and his brother, Arthur Melville, were both ordained as Maryknoll priests. He went to Guatemala in 1957, where he worked closely with local peasants. He was expelled by the government as a result of his organizing work. He left the priestly order and, in 1968, married another ex-Maryknoll sister Marjorie Bradford in Mexico. Returning to the US, the couple continued to be vocal in the Guatemalan cause, which eventually led them to be part of the Catonsville Nine group of antiwar Catholic activists.[3]
After serving out their prison sentence, both Melville and his wife obtained doctorate degrees. He wrote several books on Guatemala and Central America, some of them cowritten with his wife.[4]