The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Fitzgerald, Hon. Nicholas
Fitzgerald, Hon. Nicholas, M.L.C., eighth son of the late Francis Fitzgerald, a well-known brewer in the west of Ireland, and brother of Sir Gerald Fitzgerald, K.C.M.G., Accountant-General of the Navy, was born at Galway in 1829. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he took honours, and also won a scholarship at the Queen's College, Galway, in 1849. After spending some time in legal studies, he embraced commercial pursuits, and in 1859 arrived in Victoria, where he started the Castlemaine brewery, and did an extensive business throughout the Australian colonies. Mr. Fitzgerald, who is also largely enraged in squatting, has been a member of the Upper House for the past five-and-twenty years, and is regarded as one of the most prominent representatives of the Catholic body in Victoria. He married in Sept. 1863 Marianne, eldest daughter of the late Sir John O'Shanassy, K.C.M.G. He was one of the representatives of Victoria at the Federation Convention held in Sydney in March 1891.