William Sproston Caine

Who was William Sproston Caine?

William Sproston Caine was a British politician and Temperance advocate.

Caine was born at Seacombe, Cheshire, and was the eldest surviving son of Nathaniel Caine, a metal merchant from Cheshire, and was educated at private schools in Egremont, Merseyside and Birkenhead before entering his father's business in 1861. In 1864 he was made a partner, before moving to Liverpool in 1871. Public Affairs soon began to occupy large amounts of his attention, and he left the firm in 1878.

After his retirement from his father's company he retained the directorship of the Hodbarrow Mining Co. Ltd, Millom, and he secured the controlling interest in the Shaw's Brown Iron Co., Liverpool, leaving the management of the concern in the hands of his partner, Arthur S. Cox. The business collapsed in 1893, leaving large amounts of debt which were honourably discharged, but Caine's resources were afterwards largely devoted to paying off the mortgage which he raised to meet the firm's losses.

Caine was brought up as a Baptist under the ministry of Hugh Stowell Brown, whose daughter Alice married Caine in 1868; they had two sons and three daughters.