Hugh Glass

Hugh Glass (181715 May 1871) was an Australian pastoralist, landowner and land speculator, one of the wealthiest and most influential men in colonial Victoria in the 1850s and 1860s. His wealth was built on pastoral holdings and land deals and he exercised enormous influence over the colony's parliament.

Biography Glass was born in Portaferry, County Down, to Thomas Glass, a merchant,

In 1862 he was considered the richest man in Victoria, (He was reputed at the time in 1862 to be worth £800,000 He was saved, however, by Sir William Foster Stawell, the Chief justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, who argued that the Legislative assembly did not have the right to sentence him.) Glass was thus set free; this result was received well by the public, but was the cause of "grave consternation in parliament". Glass died on 15 May 1871 at age 55, in Flemington, Victoria, from an overdose of chloral hydrate.