David Glass

David Glass was a native of London, and led a brilliant, successful, and honourable life.  Mr. Glass was born in the township of Westminster, Ontario, July 20th, 1829.  He was educated at London Grammar School, with James Thompson, the well-known classical teacher.  Mr. Glass was called to the bar in 1864 and practiced for some years in London.  He defended Thomas Jones in the celebrated Delaware murder trial; Thomas Coyle in the Nisssouri Case; and Smith in the Sombra murder trial at Sarnia. 

Mr. Glass entered the city council in London in the year 1855, remaining as alderman until 1858, when he was elected to the Mayoralty by a unanimous vote.  He was subsequently twice elected to the Mayoralty of London by a vote of the people in the years 1865 and 1866.  The council of 1863 had commenced the year with a sensation, one of the first items of business brought up by Councilor Walter Nichol charging an assessor with wrongfully assessing his own property.  There had been serious rumors afloat even at that early day, about Chamberlain Brown’s books, and a special committee was appointed to investigate them, together with the recorder.  They reported everything all right however, although it afterwards turned out that there were serious shortages at that very time.  The council of this year was the first to introduce a fire-limits by-law, which prevented the construction of frame buildings, between King and North (now Queens Avenue) Streets.

The sensation of this year however was an assault committed by Mayor Cornish on Major Bowles, which led to the withdrawal of the British garrison from London.  Under the influence of wine Major Bowles said that certain scandalous rumors about Mayor Cornish were true.  Mayor Cornish publicly thrashed Major Bowles, and subsequently the military sent a complaint to headquarters.  Sir William Fenwick Williams, commanding Her Majesty’s forces in Canada ordered the withdrawal of the troops from London on account of the Mayor’s ruffian conduct.

In 1864 Mayor Cornish was again elected, and many exciting experiences of the previous year were repeated.  Conflict between the school board and the council prompted Mr. Glass to once again seek the mayor’s seat.  The campaign opened in a stormy manner.  The election was so riotous that Mr. Glass demanded a second day’s poll, and the calling out of the volunteers to protect his voters.  Then on the third of January 1865 London witnessed something she has never seen since.  Armed troops surrounded every polling booth in the city.  Mr. Glass was elected on the second day’s polling.  Colonel Shanley, who commanded the volunteers, billed the council for $282.60 and the account was paid, but under protest.

In 1864 after an interview with President Abraham Lincoln Mr. Glass gave his impressions of that great man in the London Free Press.  The following year, 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated.  In the fall of 1865 the Grammar and Public Schools were united, and the council appointed as its representative on the Board of Education, Wade Owens and Dr. C. G. Moore.

In 1866 Mr. Glass was again elected Mayor of the city for the third time.  This was the year that the agitation in favour of city waterworks first commenced, and the council early in February appointed a committee to ascertain if a supply could be drawn from Pond Mills.  During the threat of the Fenian society Mr. Glass was appointed Police Magistrate and Judge of the Recorder’s Court at London, and was Deputy Judge of the County of Middlesex.  Created a Q.C. by the Ontario Government in 1876 he was elected a bencher of the Law Society of Ontario in 1880.  In 1872 he was elected in the Conservative interest to the House of Commons for East Middlesex, and sat in the House during the ensuring Parliament.  In October of 1873 he with thirteen other supporters, opposed Sir John Macdonald’s Government on what was known as the Pacific Scandal. 

Mr. Glass was a powerful writer and left a large amount of manuscript.  He always had a ready helping hand for the poor, or struggling, but endeavored to make people help themselves rather than be a subject of bounty.   During his later years he spent most of his time in the West and on the Pacific Coast when he had acquired considerable interests.  For two years previous to his death he was affected with creeping paralysis, which, however, did not cause him physical suffering.  He died on the 17th of July, 1906, surrounded by his bereaved family and honoured and respected by his many friends.  His body rests in the family plot at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, London.  He married in December 1852, Sara, a second daughter of the late Henry Dalton.  He left a widow and two children Miss Eva Glass and Chester Glass.

 

The London and Middlesex Historical Society