Thomas Henry Hall Caine

Born at Runcorn, Cheshire, 14 May 1853, to a Manx father and a Cumberland mother and brought up in Liverpool; however spent considerable time in his youth with uncle's family in Ballaugh and Manx grandmother. Also spent some time helping a schoolmaster uncle at Kirk Maughold.

Consumate self publicist and not always entirely truthful - not for nothing did Vivien Allen choose the punning subtitle "Portrait of a Victorian Romancer" for her biography. Hall Caine's own biography "My Story" contains few hard facts and where his early connection with the Island is concerned is somewhat misleading.

At times he postured as more Manx than the Manx who, though they elected him MHK for many years, were deeply suspicious of him and never warmed to him. Caine would appear to have recognised this for in his note to "Recollections of Rossetti" he writes of this Manx Schoolmastering period 'I had few books of poetry and I had none of fiction, for what we afterwards called the Nonconformist conscience had already penetrated our bleak solitude and our seniors had no place for the authors who (as an unforgiving Manxman in later years said of myself) "earned their living by telling lies".' Samuel Norris, another comeover, who had personal memories of Hall Caine barely conceals his dislike in his joint biography of Caine and the undoubtedly greater T.E.Brown (another writer who, though definitely Manx born, was treated with suspicion as 'laughing at the Manx'.)

For a thiry year period from c.1890 his novels, generally running to well over 300 pages sold in their 100,000's - his plays were also successful in the Edwardian theatre and he was by far and away the most highly paid novelist of his day. His friendship of Rossetti in his final drug-problemed years also gives Caine a claim to fame. For details of his friendship with 'Jack the Ripper' see Vivien Allen's excellent biography.

Marriage

Hall Caine's early 'married' life was unconventional, whilst staying in London in 1882 with a bachelor friend, the two had their evening meals brought in from a nearby coffee shop. The two young girls who worked there formed an attachment to the young journalists - this was exploited by the girls' fathers to pressurise the pair into making 'honest women' of the pair. Although it is likely that only mild flirting had taken place, his friend Robinson agreed to marry his girl but Caine was left with the 13 year old Mary Chandler, who however adored him. Whilst he could legally marry her, Caine felt she was too young (and very likely he was not in the mood to marry) but did offer to pay for her education (yet another theme that landed up in his novels). However in December 1882 Mary's stepfather threw her out and Hall Caine took her into his small lodgings. Like Hall Caine, who was small at 5'3", Mary too was small, pretty and with a charming voice; many of his friends assumed that he too had bowed to pressure and married her. Soon afterwards he sent her to Sevenoaks to acquire some schooling and spent his free weekends with her. To keep her company he allowed his young sister Lily, then aged 13, to stay with her - she was sworn to secrecy so that news of this strange arrangement did not leak back to his Baptist chapel-going parents in Liverpool. Lily and Mary became lifelong friends and Lily, who adored her elder brother, kept her promise and no news leaked out until Hall Caine told them himself. As might be expected Mary became pregnant in 1884 at the age of 14 - by April, Mary and a housekeeper were installed at a house in Hampstead (Hall Caine found new lodgings near the Law Courts) and Ralph Hall Caine was born 15 August 1884. Delaying registering the birth for a month Hall Caine perjured himself by describing the mother as "Mary Alice Caine, formerly Chandler" - they were not actually to marry until 3 September 1886, by declaration in Edinburgh, so that Hall Caine could avoid any bad publicity. Even then he romanced somewhat, giving her age as 23 whereas she was only 17 to his 33.

Greeba Castle

Hall Caine moved to the Island in 1894. Initially the Caines rented Greeba Castle (not a castle but one of a pair of castellated houses built 1849 and designed by John Robinson of Douglas) standing above the Douglas-Peel road. They later took a house in Peel before buying Greeba Castle (by then in a poor state of repair) in 1896 which remained his home until his death in 1931.

His house became, like those of today's Hollywood stars, a place for tourists to gawp at - many postcards both of the house and/or Hall Caine were issued. An interesting comment on the back of that illustrated says "on way back passed the owner, funny looking chap"!

His architectural training was used in his remodelling of the house - the old door in the south face approached by steep steps was replaced by a new one on the west face approached by a terrace. This explains the drive shown above which apparently terminates at some windows. He and his wife were often photographed on this balustraded terrace, or as he called it 'the piazza'.

Hall Caine was knighted in 1918.

Punch in 1909 made fun of the common complaint that Hall Caine's stories were all variations on the same theme. His passion for visiting countries with an eye for self advertisment is also mocked in the 1902 Punch cartoon.

 
From Coronation issue and part of a supposed Gala Performance for their Majesties; item eleven in the programme is "Mr. Rudyard Kipling, in his universal athletic costume, will recite a New and Original Epochmaker, entitled, The Chantey of the Nations."

References:

Vivien Allen Hall Caine Portrait of a Victorian Romancer Sheffield Academic Press (ISBN 1-85075-809-3) 1997

Hall Caine My Story London: William Heinemann 1908

(see also introduction to his Master of Man)

C Fred Kenyon Hall Caine The Man and the Novelist London:Greening & Co 1901

N. Crowe Notes on the Ancestry of Hall Caine IoMFHSoc vol 14 #4 pp122-124 1992

S. Norris Two Men of Manxland Douglas:Norris Modern Press 1947