Former Deemster William Cain has died.

He was Attorney General, later Second Deemster and First Deemster - the island’s top judge - when he took over from Deemster Jack Corrin in 1998. Deemster Cain retired in 2002 and was succeeded by Michael Kerruish.

Mr Cain, who was 85, was a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) and a Queen’s Counsellor (QC).

He was born in Peel in 1935 to James Arthur and Mary Edith Cain (nee Lamb).

His father was an advocate with the family firm of TW Cain’s, which had been started by his father, also Thomas William Cain, a generation earlier.

William spent his childhood at a small private school on Stanley Terrace in Peel.

When the Second World War broke out the family moved away as James Cain joined the RAF, firstly to Belfast then to Cambridge where William and his brother, Charles, became choral scholars at one of the world’s most prestigious choirs, King’s College, Cambridge.

William went on to be a student at the Marlborough public school, where he attended from the age of 14.

He visited the island in the holidays and also visited his mother who spent two years at a sanatorium outside Ramsey with tuberculosis.

After two years spent as an officer in a Tank Regiment during his National Service where he served in Egypt and Libya, he completed a law degree at Worcester College, Oxford, and, after passing the English Bar in London, he returned to the island to take his place in T W Cain’s.

William Cain and his wife Felicity were founders of the Manx Wildlife Trust and he was a member of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society.