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. William Frazer (Marc Harrison), the result of a relationship between Elizabeth and Daniel Fogarty. Elizabeth married Albert Frazer before he was born and Albert brought him up as his own son. As a young man, he came under the influence of Josiah Beaumont ( Warren Clarke), an ambitious banker. Daniel Fogarty returned to marry Elizabeth and together they thwarted the plans of Beaumont. Denied access to his son by a bitter Samuel and Charlotte. Shortly afterwards, William was killed by a runaway horse and wagon.

A later tale by Abraham, For Love of the Onedins, appeared in a short-lived magazine called tvlife. This story, covering Leonora'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. Among other TV shows from the West like Poldark and Dallas, The Onedin Line was a huge success in communist Romania in the late seventies and early eighties, when it was broadcast by Romanian TV. Eventually it was discontinued (together with other popular TV shows) in favour of the omnipresent state propaganda designed to show off the successes of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. Consequently, to flee this propaganda the population tuned into foreign stations (if possible) to continue watching their favourite tv shows but also to receive uncensored news about events like the fall of the Berlin Wall. This can be considered as a small contribution to the uprising which brought down the Ceaușescu regime. [16] Home media [ edit ] 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. The series made the careers of Peter Gilmore, who played James, Anne Stallybrass, who played Anne, and Howard Lang, who played Captain William Baines, as well as being an important break for Jill Gascoine ( Letty Gaunt), Warren Clarke ( Josiah Beaumont), Kate Nelligan ( Leonora Biddulph) and Jane Seymour ( Emma Callon). Peter Gilmore and Anne Stallybass got married in 1987 and remained together until his death in 2013. A final story was published in the Daily Mirror, entitled Cat and Mouse. It was set during Series Four and Matt Harvey made his second appearance in print.

Side guide

In the TV series James Onedin’s first ship, the Charlotte Rhodes, was portrayed by a schooner of the same name, built in 1904 in Fjellebroens Shipyard, Denmark, by F. Hoffman. [5] She appeared in the series from 1971 until 1976. Later the ship became unseaworthy so she was dropped from the series. While some sources suggest she was replaced by another schooner called Kathleen and May, [6] there is nothing in that ship’s history to support this. [7] The original Charlotte Rhodes was a victim of arson in October 1979 in the Netherlands before the end of the series. The first link between the Kathleen & May and the Charlotte Rhodes was not made until 2005. Anne Onedin (nee Webster) ( Anne Stallybrass), is the spinster daughter of Captain Joshua Webster. In the mid-1850s (before the start of the series) 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. Series three to eight are available on DVD from Memphis Belle in the Netherlands, and all are uncut. All series are also available in Germany. On Anne's death in childbirth, 11+ years later (at the end of the second series), James has come to love her deeply. Her portrait continues to hang prominently in his home for many years.

After a slow-burning courtship, he eventually marries his daughter's governess, Letty Gaunt ( Jill Gascoine). 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. Lady Fogarty, Elizabeth Fogarty (nee Onedin, formerly Frazer) ( Jessica Benton), James's volatile sister, works in their father's shop. She is informally engaged to marry seafarer Daniel Fogarty ( Michael Billington). 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 ( Philip Bond), 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. Yahoo group for Onedin fans. NOTE: Yahoo has shut down all of their Group forums, and as of 14 December 2020 will have also done away with their mailing lists left over from the Groups. The Onedin Line Group was saved and relocated to Relocated group for Onedin fans. One day I stumbled across the word Ondine, a mythological sea creature. By transposing the "e", I had James Onedin, a sea devil. Other regular cast members included Jessica Benton ( Elizabeth Frazer), Brian Rawlinson and James Garbutt ( Robert Onedin), Mary Webster, ( Sarah Onedin), Michael Billington / Tom Adams ( Daniel Fogarty).

Series two follows a similar pattern, with edited versions arriving on VHS and DVD in the UK from the same companies listed above. The version from the Netherlands is sourced from the same masters. The Australian version, however, has all 14 episodes uncut on four discs, and was released in 2008. Popularity in communist Romania [ edit ] Gilmore's signature (as Onedin) in an autograph for the Romanian paper Scînteia Tineretului, December 1978

The pilot was produced by Anthony Coburn [ citation needed] and was broadcast as a one-off BBC Drama Playhouse production on 7 December 1970. It was announced in September 2010 that a copy of the pilot episode was discovered in the American Library of Congress. Until the discovery it was thought that there was no recording of the episode in existence. Hero". SBA Steamboat Register. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011 . Retrieved 1 December 2015. In the mid 1980s, the BBC repeated the series in a daytime slot. From 1992 UK Gold repeated the series in full, ending repeats in 1998, before moving to sister channel UK Gold Classics in October 1998 when that channel was launched, although it was only available on Sky Digital on weekends between 6pm-2am and the showing only lasted around six months. Captain Joshua Webster ( James Hayter), the father of Anne Onedin and the original owner of the "Charlotte Rhodes". When the series begins he is a retired Royal Navy Captain on a small pension. He has been unable to maintain the "Charlotte Rhodes" in a seaworthy condition, and now spends most of his pension on rum.The Onedin Line is a BBC television drama series that ran from 1971 to 1980. The series was created by Cyril Abraham. Several years later, James considers two possible replacement wives: wealthy and emancipated widow Caroline Maudsley, and the young heiress Leonora Biddulph ( Kate Nelligan), ultimately being rejected by both. Traditional music, including folk songs and sea shanties in particular, are heard in abundance throughout the series, including such songs as " The Maid of Amsterdam," "Ruben Ranzo," " South Australia," " Maggie May," " The Sailor's Hornpipe," " Botany Bay," " Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes," "A Hundred Years Ago," " Blow the Man Down," and " On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at".