Birth, marriage: Gants of Lincolnshire website.
Cain Jeliff was apparently a sailor, and with his brother-in-law Malen Rumbelow junior, in about 1864 began a fishing business at Encounter Bay. Malen Rumbelow and Cain Jeliff were among the organizers of the first Regatta. They also joined the lifeboat crew in 1867. In the many years since, the Rumbelows have saved many lives from the sea, even at the expense of their own.

Fishing was found to be a lucrative business for the young Cain and Malen, and by 1873 they were able to purchase a cutter from Port Adelaide. In 1890 a larger boat of seventeen tons, with berth accommodation for six was bought. However, in 1877 tragedy struck, and the first of many drownings in the Rumbelow family took place.

On 2 March 1877, Mr James, Superintendent of the works at the Murray Mouth, was returning to Goolwa in a boat manned by Cain Jeliff and a Goolwa fisherman named Langley, when about three miles below Goolwa the tiller was lost. The weather was rough, but Cain stood at the stern, steering with a makeshift rudder, when as the boat tossed in the water, he lost his balance and plunged overboard. The weather prevented the other two men from turning the boat around; however, James and Langley got ashore and walked back along the bank, but could see no sign of the fisherman. Cain was just forty-two when he drowned. He could not swim, and it was several days before the body was found. The local correspondent for The Southern Argus described the dead man as quiet and inoffensive, and 'in the domestic relations of husband and wife perhaps there was no happier pair amongst us, and therefore the grief of the bereaved wife is very great'. [Settlers around the Bay - Laube]