Loreto York, the first Maltese mayor in Australia who was renowned for his sense of humour and irreverent wit, died at the age of 90 after a five-month battle with cancer.

Born as Loreto Meilak in Sliema in 1918, Mr York, who played a pioneering role in local government in Melbourne and was the first non-Anglo, non-Celt to sit on the Brunswick Council, died on October 5.

In an interview recorded for the Australian National Library in 1989, Mr York spoke frankly about the obstacles placed in the way of newcomers within his party, the Australian Labour Party.

Yet, he was indispensable to them. Multilingual - Maltese, Italian, English, Arabic and smatterings of French, German and Greek - charismatic and endowed with great energy, he could directly communicate with migrants who did not feel comfortable speaking English.

He also played an important role in the Storemen & Packers' Union, especially its 1970s campaign for equal pay for women in the cosmetics manufacturing industry.

Born into a family of 11, his merchant seaman father, Salvatore Meilak, was away at sea for long periods which made life for his mother very hard. Mr York only had four years of schooling but eventually obtained an apprenticeship as a ladies' hairdresser at a Sliema salon, which catered for the wives of the British Admiralty.

He was a handsome and charming man with a bevy of girlfriends well into his 80s. As a young apprentice hairdresser, he was noticed by Mrs Vanderbilt, wife of one of the world's wealthiest men who was vacationing in Malta.

She had asked his employer whether she could take the young apprentice to Europe with her as her gigolo. Nothing came of the offer but Mr York's charms contributed to a highly interesting life, including an affair with an Egyptian princess during the war.

Stationed in London after the war, he changed his name from Meilak to York as he felt a foreign name in London stood in his way of personal advancement.

In 1947, he married Olive Turner, an English photographic assistant, and their son Barry was born three years before they emigrated as "£10" migrants in 1954.

Expecting Melbourne to be a smaller version of London, Mr York was bitterly disappointed with what he saw as its backwardness, intolerance and racism.

As mayor of Brunswick, he reversed the official protocol at the annual mayoral ball to allow the aboriginal leader, Pastor Doug Nicholls and his wife, to enter the Town Hall first, as head of the official guests, instead of the state Governor and MPs.

He never fully embraced Australia and always thought of himself as Maltese - heaven help anybody who ever said a word against his motherland in his presence.

He was a working class intellectual who thought deeply about life. He was spiritual but not religious. One of the songs he requested for his funeral, John Lennon's Imagine, appealed to him for the lines about having "no religion" and "no countries".

He is survived by his son Barry, daughter-in-law Joan Garvan and grandchildren, Joseph and Hannah.