The Onedin Line

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Photograph from Radio Times depicting Peter Gilmore as James Onedin and Jessica Benton as Elizabeth Frazer.
Photograph from Radio Times depicting Peter Gilmore as James Onedin and Jessica Benton as Elizabeth Frazer.

The Onedin Line was a popular BBC television drama series that ran from 1971 to 1980. The series is set in Liverpool in the late 19th century and deals with the rise of a shipping line, the Onedin Line, named after its owner James Onedin. Around this central theme are the lives of his family, most notably his brother and 'partner', shop owner Robert, and his sister Elizabeth, giving insight in the lifestyle and customs at the time, not only at sea, but also ashore (mostly lower and upper middle class). The series also illustrates some of the changes in business and shipping, such as from wooden to steel ships and from sailing ships to steam ships. And it shows the role that ships played in affairs like international politics, uprisings and the slave trade.

The series was created by Cyril Abraham, a native of Liverpool, where the story is set. An article in "Woman" magazine published in July 1973, interviewing Cyril Abraham it tells how he came up with the very unusual family name Onedin.

He wanted something unique, He'd decided to call the male character James, but still had not found a name when the BBC agreed to film the story. Then some inspiration. He said, "One day I stumbled across the word Ondine, a mythological sea creature. By transposing the "e", I had James Onedin, a sea devil."

The opening credits of the series features music from the ballet Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian, and other background music includes excerpts from Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 5, Manuel de Falla's The Three-Cornered Hat, and Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1. The programme was recorded in Dartmouth, Devon, as well as certain scenes in Exeter, Falmouth and Gloucester (many of the dock scenes).

Contents

[edit] Story outline

James Onedin (played by Peter Gilmore), the younger son of old Samuel Onedin, a miserly ship chandler, was a penniless sea captain with aspirations to greater things. He married Anne Webster (Anne Stallybrass), who was some years his senior (Stallybrass, however, actually was 7 years younger than Gilmore) and the spinster daughter of Captain Joshua Webster, owner of the topsail schooner Charlotte Rhodes. James's only motivation was to get his hands on the ship. A shrewd and often ruthless operator, James soon built up a fleet, assisted by the loyal Mr (later Captain) Baines. His other sailing ships included the Pampero, the Medusa and the Soren Larsen. He also initiated the building of a steamship, the Anne Onedin.

James's volatile sister, Elizabeth Jessica Benton, became pregnant by seafarer Daniel Fogarty but married wealthy Albert Frazer, developer of steamship technology and heir to the Frazer shipyards, a connection James soon turned to his own advantage. Elizabeth gave birth to a son, William, who later died as a young man in a street accident.

Robert, James's older brother, took after their father and counted coppers in the family shop, though he later expanded it into a profitable department store, urged on by his thrifty and socially ambitious wife, Sarah. They had one son, Samuel, who cared more for the sea and ships than shopkeeping. Robert was elected as a Member of Parliament and he and Sarah moved to a smart new residence, but Robert's life abruptly came to an end when he choked on a bone at a family dinner. His widow Sarah made attempts to contact him through a medium, then, despite her son Samuel's objections, almost married the fortune-hunting Captain Dampier. She was last heard of as having undertaken a tour of the world but at a certain point abandoned its itinerary. Since she did not reappear in Liverpool she may even have settled abroad.

At the end of the second series, Anne, whom James had come to love, died giving birth to a daughter, Charlotte. James considered two possible replacement brides for a while, wealthy widow Caroline Maudslay and the young heiress Leonora Biddulph, before settling for his daughter's governess, Letty Gaunt. In due course Letty also died, of diphtheria, and by the last series James was married to a third wife, the exotic Margarita Juarez, and was by then a grandfather.

The eighth and final series ended with news of the death at sea of Daniel Fogarty, whom Elizabeth had finally married after the death of her first husband Albert, and also with the birth, at last, of a son and heir for James. Born aboard ship, the child was named Will after Captain Baines.

[edit] Actors

The series made the careers of Peter Gilmore, who played James, and Anne Stallybrass, who played Anne, as well as being an important break for Jill Gascoine (Letty), Warren Clarke (Josiah Beaumont), Kate Nelligan (Leonora Biddulph) and Jane Seymour (Emma Callon). Other cast members included Jessica Benton (Elizabeth Frazer), Brian Rawlinson and James Garbutt (Robert Onedin), Mary Webster (Sarah Onedin), Michael Billington / Tom Adams (Daniel Fogarty), Philip Bond (Albert Frazer), Edward Chapman (George Callon), James Warwick (Edmund Callon), John Phillips (Jack Frazer), Caroline Harris (Caroline Maudslay), James Hayter (Captain Joshua Webster), Ken Hutchison (Matt Harvey), Howard Lang (Captain Baines), Laura Hartong (Charlotte Onedin), Marc Harrison (William Frazer), Christopher Douglas (Samuel Onedin), Roberta Iger (Margarita Onedin), Jenny Twigge (Caroline Onedin), Cyril Shaps (Braganza), Hilda Braid (Miss Simmonds), David Garfield (Samuel Plimsoll), Robert James (Rowland Biddulph), Sylvia Coleridge (Mrs Salt), Sonia Dresdel (Lady Lazenby), Nicolette Roeg (Ada Gamble), John Rapley (Dunwoody), Stephanie Bidmead (Mrs Darling), John Sharp (Uncle Percy Spendilow), Heather Canning (Mrs Arkwright), Keith Jayne (Tom Arnold), Frederick Jaeger (Max van der Rheede), Edward Judd (Manuel Ortega), Elizabeth Chambers (Miss Gladstone) and Jack Watson (Dr Darling).

[edit] Novels

There are six novels based on the series. The first five, The Shipmaster (1972), The Iron Ships (1974), The High Seas (1975), The Trade Winds (1977) and The White Ships (1979) are all by the creator of the series, Cyril Abraham. The books are not straightforward novelisations of the television episodes, since the author introduced additional material and also changed a number of details, though dialogue from the series that Abraham had penned himself is utilised. In print, Elizabeth's child is conceived in a private room above a restaurant, not on the Charlotte Rhodes; George Callon lasted considerably longer and died in bed after suffering a stroke, not in a warehouse fire; Emma was Callon's daughter, not his niece; Captain Webster remarried, his new partner being the irrepressible old crone Widow Malloy, an entertaining character with a repertoire of coarse remarks; Albert did not abscond to Patagonia but died aboard ship following his involvement in retrieving a kidnapped Elizabeth from Daniel Fogarty; Caroline Maudslay and Matt Harvey were omitted altogether (though Matt did appear in a short story - see below); Jack Frazer's life was extended and he lived to see both Emma's death and Daniel's return from Australia, though his television discovery that William was not his grandson never took place.

The sixth novel, The Turning Tide (1980), was written by Bruce Stewart. This deviated even more from the television series and probably from Cyril Abraham's intentions as well. Letty was depicted as a jealous harpy aiming unpleasant remarks at Charlotte; Elizabeth and Daniel ended up emigrating to Australia permanently and James became the owner of the Frazer Line. The book is, nonetheless, an entertaining read with a moving final speech from James.

A series of Onedin short stories by Cyril Abraham, set between Series Two and Series Three, appeared in Woman magazine in 1973. The plots involved Robert's encounter with the attractive Amelia, a social gathering that revolves around the naming of the first Onedin steamship and an appearance by Sarah's destitute sister Constance, who is on the streets. A later tale by Abraham, For Love of the Onedins, appeared in a short-lived magazine called tvlife. This story, covering Leonora Biddulph's wedding, occurs between Series Three and Series Four and features Matt Harvey, who was Elizabeth's love interest during the fourth series. There is a slanging match between Elizabeth and Sarah, who each disparage the circumstances of the other's wedding day until Leonora intervenes to restore peace.

Cyril Abraham had planned to write a whole series of novels that would follow the fortunes of the Onedin Line into the twentieth century, but he died in 1979 after completing The White Ships. The only clue as to where the story might ultimately have led is that Abraham saw James and Elizabeth as eventually becoming two wizened old autocrats, both determined not to relinquish their hold on the shipping business.

[edit] Broadcasts

Originally screened as a one-off BBC Drama Playhouse production transmitted on the 7th December 1970. No recording of this now exists, the story and the cast were basically the same (with the exception of Sheila Allen, who played Anne Webster/Onedin. Anne Stallybrass took over the part for the series) as the first episode of series 1 that was later transmitted on the 15th October 1971.

The series was originally aired in the UK by the BBC, from 15 October 1971 to 26th October 1980. In the Netherlands, broadcasts started in 1972. In the early 1990s there was a rerun and in 2007, MAX restarted a broadcast of the first series, with one episode every workday (Monday through Friday), starting 10 July 2007. As of mid-August it is uncertain whether they will also show the other series.

[edit] Episode list

[edit] Ship

Among others, these tall ships were filmed:

[edit] External links