Career
He created the first hybrids in the intermediate bearded iris group, and is thought to have created more than 100 cultivars of bulbous iris. Caparne was born on 17 November 1855 in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire. Caparne attended Magnus Grammar School where he had art lessons from the painter, politician and art-master William Cubley of Newark-on-Trent, who had been a pupil of Sir William Beechey, a former pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Caparne taught in an art school from the age of 16, and in 1877 was taken on as drawing-master at Oundle School.
A daughter, Louisa Winifred, was born in 1880, and in the same year he was appointed art master at Oundle.