The Onedin Line


The Onedin Line is a BBC television drama series that ran from 1971 to 1980. The series was created by Cyril Abraham.
The series is set in Liverpool from 1860 to 1886 and covers the rise of a fictional shipping company, the Onedin Line, named after its owner, Captain James Onedin. Around this, it depicts the lives of his family, most notably his brother and partner Robert, a ship chandler, and his sister Elizabeth, giving insight into the lifestyle and customs at the time, not only at sea, but also ashore. The series also illustrates some of the changes in business and shipping, such as from wooden to steel ships and from sailing ships to steamships. It shows the role that ships played in such matters as international politics, uprisings and the slave trade.

Overview

The Onedin Line is a classic BBC drama series set in 19th-century Liverpool, and narrating the changing fortunes of the ambitious Captain James Onedin and his family. A 55-minute pilot episode for the series aired as part of BBC One's Drama Playhouse strand on 7 December 1970, produced by Anthony Coburn.

Series 1 (1971)

Series 1 played from 15 October 1971 to 28 January 1972.
The series opens in 1860 Liverpool, as 28-year-old captain James Onedin establishes a new shipping company, marrying an older spinster, 30-year-old Anne, daughter of the owner of the schooner Charlotte Rhodes, to do so. Main characters and story are introduced. Narrative unfolds around historically contemporary events, such as a Phylloxera outbreak affecting production of Portuguese wine, making a point of incorporating real events into the fictitious family drama.

Series 2 (1972)

Series 2 played from 17 September to 31 December 1972

Series 3 (1973)

Series 3 played from 21 October 1973 to 27 January 1974

Series 4 (1976)

Series 4 played from 25 April to 27 June 1976

Series 5 (1977)

Series 5 played from 26 June to 28 August 1977

Series 6 (1978)

Series 6 played from 18 July to 17 September 1978

Series 7 (1979)

Series 7 played from 22 July to 23 September 1979

Series 8 (1980)

Series 8 played from 31 August to 26 October 1980

Characters

Main

James Onedin, the younger son of Samuel Onedin, a miserly ship chandler, who left his shop and money to his elder son Robert, and a few words of advice to James. He was a 28 year old penniless sea captain with aspirations to greater things. To become a ship-owner, he marries Anne Webster, who is over 30, some years his senior. She is the spinster daughter of Captain Joshua Webster, owner of the topsail schooner Charlotte Rhodes. At first, it is purely a business transaction on Onedin's part and a pragmatic solution to penniless spinsterhood on Anne's part; but a warmer relationship gradually develops.
On Anne's death in childbirth, 11+ years later, James has come to love her deeply. Her portrait continues to hang prominently in his home for many years.
Several years later, James considers two possible replacement wives: wealthy and emancipated widow Caroline Maudsley, and the young heiress Leonora Biddulph, ultimately being rejected by both.
After a slow-burning courtship, he eventually marries his daughter's governess, Letty Gaunt. Tragedy strikes in the first year of the marriage when she, unfortunately in James's view, becomes pregnant. The memories of Anne's death have always remained in his thoughts. In due course, Letty also dies, of diphtheria.
By the final series, James is married to a third wife, the exotic Margarita Juarez, and is, by then, a grandfather. He is framed for theft and imprisoned. He is freed when Elizabeth, Baines, and Samuel discover evidence to clear his name. On his release, he takes to the sea again with Captain Baines, on business to South America, stabilising his life for the next 20 years, only to find Margarita as a stowaway. On the voyage home, she reveals that she is pregnant and unable, as was Baines as a cargo captain, to deliver the baby, so the cook is left to do the job. A baby son is delivered, with both mother and son well. James names the boy William, after Captain Baines. By the end of the series, James is in his mid-60s, or older.
James is a charismatic but morally flexible man, whose eye is always on how to make a profit from any given situation. He seems to consider himself amusing. His actions frequently lead to breaks with his nearest family and associates.
Anne Onedin , is the spinster daughter of Captain Joshua Webster. In the mid-1850s she had been expecting to marry her sweetheart Michael Adams. However, he never returned from his first trip to sea on the "Star of Morn". Anne is now in her early 30s and has nothing to look forward to after her father's death than living on the charity of friends or the workhouse. Having rejected James's offer to form a business partnership with her father, Captain Webster, she proposes and enters into marriage with James, in full recognition that it was a business transaction. She accompanies James to Portugal on his first trip in the "Charlotte Rhodes", on their wedding day. She will subsequently travel with James on many of his trips, including to Australia, the Confederate States of America, East Africa and China.
James's feelings of jealousy become piqued when he returns with his second ship, the clipper "Pampero", to find that Anne's former suitor, Michael Adams, has returned, having previously jumped ship after mistakenly believing he was being made the scapegoat for the murder of the mate of the "Star of Morn". Adams signs on to the next voyage of the "Pampero" with James and Anne, where her conscience is affected when James covers up a death which occurred at the hands of Adams.
Anne is the conscience of James and, when she cannot take his ruthless business behaviour any longer, leaves him to live hand-to-mouth in the Liverpool slums, seriously affecting her health. They reunite after a yellow fever outbreak in Liverpool.
After James spends the money promised for their new house to buy another ship, the "Maria da Gloria", Anne has a miscarriage, brought on by carrying coal from the cellar to her kitchen. This event leads him to sell some shares in the Onedin Line to Lord and Lady Lazenby to finance a fashionable new house for Anne. As Captain Webster opines, "out of guilt".
On her reconciliation with James, she accompanies him to China in his bid to regain control of the Onedin Line. During the voyage she ignores the doctor's warning not to get pregnant, knowing how much James wants a son and heir, and, after a difficult voyage back from China, she dies giving birth to a daughter, Charlotte, less than 12 months after her previous miscarriage.
William Baines, first mate to James. Taught by Anne to read and write, he becomes a captain and serves on all of Onedin's ships. Appalled at Onedin's business dealings and treatment of ships' crews, even though he is fully prepared to use his own fists to maintain discipline, he leaves to work for a rival shipping line for a short time, but returns to Onedin.
Another falling-out leads Baines to buy his own ship, but a fire breaks out, destroying the ship and killing Tom, a boy he and James took on first as a cabin boy and then as an indentured lad. Blaming James, he leaves again, and is tricked into the plot to frame James for theft. He then helps to clear James' name. On their last voyage together, James' wife Margarita has a baby son, who is named in Baines's honour.
Lady Fogarty, Elizabeth Fogarty , James's volatile sister, works in their father's shop. She is informally engaged to marry seafarer Daniel Fogarty. However, she does not fancy being a sea captain's wife, and wants better things. Her head is turned by the attentions of the wealthy Albert Frazer, developer of steamship technology and heir to the Frazer shipyards, a connection James soon turns to his own advantage. After a heated moment of passion aboard the "Charlotte Rhodes" with Daniel Fogarty, she falls pregnant. Against the advice of her family, she elopes with Albert. Elizabeth gives birth to a son, William Frazer, who she initially tried to raise as Albert's son. William's true parentage is accidentally revealed by James's brother, Robert, at a party for the child's first birthday. Albert agrees to raise William as his own.
The marriage is unhappy. Albert takes up with a music hall singer, Carrie Harris. Shortly before the death of Anne, the Frazers start divorce proceedings, but later reconcile. Albert takes frequent trips away on business, finally settling in South America, where he dies several years later. Elizabeth returns to the now-married Captain Fogarty. By the end of Series 3, Elizabeth is intending to run off with him to Australia, until she is informed that their plans will be financed by money that is rightfully her husband's. Having sold her house, she is left with no option but to move in with her father-in-law.
Albert's father, Jack Frazer dies, leaving his shipyards and shipping line to Elizabeth for William to inherit on coming of age, so the Frazer name will live on, having discovered that William is the son of Daniel Fogarty. Elizabeth is surprisingly effective at running both the Frazer Line and the Frazer shipbuilding yards. She subsequently has a relationship with her employee, Matt Harvey.
16 years after he left, Daniel Fogarty returns from Australia, where he has amassed a fortune, and marries Elizabeth, whom he still loves, to help and advise his son, who retains the name Frazer.
Elizabeth and Daniel became estranged, as their business interests differ and he rises in political circles to become ambassador to Turkey. She refuses to go with him, and remains to run Frazer's. As time goes by, a reconciliation between Elizabeth and Daniel is in the offing as they exchange letters and Daniel resigns as ambassador. On his return to Liverpool, his ship is in a collision and he is declared missing.
Robert Onedin, James's older brother, takes after their father and counts coppers in the family ship chandlery, though he later expands it into a profitable department store, after visiting the United States to see new methods of selling. He and his wife Sarah have one son, Samuel, who at first cares more for the sea and ships than for shopkeeping. Robert is elected as a member of Parliament; he and Sarah move to a smart new residence, but his life abruptly comes to an end when he chokes on a bone at a family dinner.
Sarah Onedin, wife of Robert, is always looking to improve her station in life as her husband's status rises. She is upset at how her husband's brother, James, borrows money from him to further his own ambitions. When her husband dies, she and her son, Samuel, run the business. She is shocked when her son marries Charlotte after William gets her pregnant. Sarah makes attempts to contact Robert through a medium, despite her son Samuel's objections. She almost marries the fortune-hunting Captain Dampier. She is last heard of as having undertaken a tour of the world.
Letty Onedin is employed as governess to James's daughter Charlotte. She reconciles the two and grows to love James, while his feelings are initially repressed by memories of his first wife, Anne. Letty starts her own business, employing, at a fair wage, women whose men are out of work. James, recognizing that she is a force in her own right, softens; remembering Anne's death, they are married with his proviso that they have no children. Letty falls pregnant, which she hides from James, owing to his loss of Anne in childbirth, as did Charlotte by her cousin William, and James returns from a voyage to discover that, like Anne before, she is having a difficult childbirth. The baby, James's male heir, dies. Charlotte had a baby boy, Robert. Letty throws herself into work and builds a house for foundlings of prostitutes and destitute women, to the disbelief of prominent townsfolk. After some time, diphtheria breaks out amongst the children at the home; Letty nurses the children and dies from the disease.
Margarita Onedin is the daughter of a South American politician who is killed in a revolution. James rescues her after her escape from the fighting, and quickly marries her. In the final episode of the series, during a voyage "'round the Horn", she gives birth to James's son, Will Onedin, named after Captain Baines.