Born in Canada and educated in New Zealand, Evelyn Rigg married Commander Thomas Bunbury Gough, formerly of the Royal Navy, at St Peter and Paul's Catholic Church, South Melbourne, in 1873. Gradually Evelyn Gough turned her attention to feminist issues. She had a vehicle for her views when, in 1898, she became co-proprietor, with Catherine Hay Thomson, of the Melbourne weekly journal The Sun: An Illustrated Journal for the Home and Society. Her other contributions to the journal included short stories and fashion notes.
Gough also had a strong interest in social welfare issues and is considered to have been a pioneer reformer in areas such as factories, prisons, insane asylums and hospices for epileptics. She was the International Secretary of the National Council of Women of Victoria. She had six children, one of whom, Doris, married the pioneer Australian potter Merric Boyd. Widowed in 1905, Evelyn Gough moved to the then outer Melbourne suburb of Murrumbeena to be near her daughter and son-in-law.
Gough played an important role in the early lives of her Boyd grandchildren, all of whom were to become well known in the art world: Arthur, David and Guy Boyd, Mary (m.1. John Perceval, 2.Sidney Nolan) and Lucy Beck. Gough died on Christmas Eve 1931 at the Boyd house at Murrumbeena.
