A Liverpool Exemplar - Robert Cain

 

Robert Cain was born in poverty on the 29th of April, 1826 on Spike Island, which is in the entrance to Cork Harbour on the south coast of Ireland. His father James Cain was a soldier in the 88th Regiment of the British Army, known as the 88th Foot 'Connaught Rangers'. Forced to leave the army due to ill health, James and his family travelled to England to find work and Robert arrived in Liverpool with his parents in late 1827 or early 1828 and grew up in the slums of the Islington area of the city with his older sister Hannah and two younger siblings, Mary and William. When he was in his early teens Robert was indentured to a cooper on board a ship carrying palm oil from West Africa. Palm oil had replaced slaves as Liverpool’s primary trade with that part of Africa and the conditions were hostile and unpleasant. Many sailors died in minor battles and skirmishes, or from Malaria, and it was known as the 'white man's graveyard'. After working out his indenture Robert returned to Liverpool in 1844 where he set himself up first as a cooper and soon after, as a brewer. Here he met Ann Newall, the daughter of James Newall, a shoemaker, and they were married on the 4th of April 1847 in St. Philip's Church, Hardman Street, Liverpool. He began brewing around 1848 on Limekiln Lane which was in the Scotland Road / Vauxhall area of the city, but within a few years the quality of his brews was such that he expanded his operation to a nearby brewery on Wilton Street. By 1858 the brewery needed to expand again and Robert bought Hindley's brewery on Stanhope Street, Toxteth, where the current Robert Cain's brewery now stands. At the same time Robert also made shrewd property deals and ran a hotel near to the brewery on Stanhope Street, and as the company grew it expanded by buying out smaller brewers and taking control of their pubs.

He originally named The Stanhope Street brewery, the Mersey Brewery, which now included a great deal of brewing equipment. Over the following decades he updated and developed the site, pulling down nearby court-style slum housing to expand. From the early 1860s the Cains lived in the affluent enclave of Grassendale Park but by the 1880s Robert and his large family (he had five sons and six daughters) were living in a mansion on Aigburth Road with the brewery now one of the largest in the city. By 1896, when the company became Robert Cain and Sons Ltd, Robert was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the city. Cain's 'Superior Ales and Stouts' were available across Liverpool. After the death of his wife Robert moved to an even larger house near Hoylake and was followed by most of his children, who lived in their own flamboyant mansions nearby.

He was an important figure in the powerful Constitutional Association and had considerable influence on local politics. He recruited brewery workers to campaign on behalf of Conservative candidates for the Council and became known as 'King of the Toxteths'. He was generally well-liked and respected by his workers and the Cain family were well known in the area of Aigburth and St. Michaels. Like other Victorian gentlemen Cain enjoyed having his portrait painted and was a patron of the arts. He sat for the well-known Liverpool artist William Daniels for at least two portraits and was also painted by George Hall Neale, a Manx painter who lived and worked in Liverpool in the late nineteenth century. Robert was also a collector of rare plants and was especially fond of orchids.

As the twentieth century began he began to move control of the business to his sons Charles and William, who later became noted philanthopists, supporting medical charities, including the Women's Hospital and the Bluecoat Hospital, as well as providing money for aircraft during World War I. William Cain donated his house at Hoylake, known as Wilton Grange, to the nation as a convalescent home for injured officers. Both sons became baronets and Charles Cain became Lord Brocket in 1933. Robert Cain fell ill in late 1906 and after six months of declining health he died at home on the 19th of July, 1907 during a heatwave, aged 82. He left a personal legacy of over £400,000 (around £28 million when adjusted for inflation) and a business that was one of the wealthiest regional breweries in the country and one of the UK’s top 50 companies of any kind. His lavish funeral on the 23rd of July took place on a day of thunderstorms and torrential rain, but despite the bad weather a crowd of three thousand attended and had to be restrained by the police at the gates of St James's. Official mourners included aldermen, city dignitaries and businessmen, including the brewer Daniel Higson, whose company would later buy Cain's brewery and operate it for almost 70 years. Also in attendance was Cain’s friend George Hall Neale. Interestingly Cain's father James, who died in poverty in 1871, and with whom Cain had very little contact after the 1840s, is also buried separately at St. James's.  In 1921 the company he had established merged with Walkers of Warrington. The new Walker Cains business only lasted two years before the Stanhope Street site and the right to brew Cains ales was sold to Higsons, which kept the Cains brand alive and associated with Liverpool for much of the century.

Now part of the 'Cain's Brewery Village

The company, Robert Cain and Sons, owned over 200 pubs in Liverpool but is most notable for having built three of the most gloriously extravagant pubs in Britain: The Philharmonic Dining Rooms, The Vines and The Central. These highly ornate and elaborate pubs, built to celebrate Robert Cain's own success and to demonstrate the skill of Liverpool craftsmen, remain landmark Liverpool buildings in the twenty-first century. 2022 saw the return of Cains at a new impressive venue, Cain's Brewery Village in the trendy Baltic triangle within the walls of the old brewery. Mikhail, a company that owns several pubs and hotels in the north-west, intend to start brewing Cain's beer using the original recipes. The multi-million-pound investment will see the new facility spread across three floors of the original building creating 40 jobs.

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