Solomon Blay (or Bleay) (20 January 1816 – 18 August 1897) was an English convict transported to the Australian penal colony of Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania).
After being involved in attempted counterfeiting base coin (which was a crime punishable by death) he was sentenced and transported to Australia in 1836 aboard the ship Sarah.
He and his wife attempted to relocate to England but his identity was discovered and he had no choice but to return to Tasmania and plead for his job back.
When Cash returned to Hobart after the closure of the Norfolk Island penal colony in 1854, the pair paths frequently crossed.
[13] Cash in his memoirs wrote, "Of all the wretches attached to or in the employ of Her Majesty's Government there are none so truly contemptible as the flagellator, and in all my experiences through life I never knew a man with one redeeming feature who ever filled that odious office.