Howard Lang (born Donald Yarranton; March 20, 1911 – 11 December 1989) was an English actor known for playing Captain William Baines in the BBC nautical drama The Onedin Line.

[4] His younger brother from his father's second marriage was Sir Peter Yarranton (1924–2003), chairman of the United Kingdom Sports Council from 1989 to 1994, and a notable figure in the world of rugby union, both as a player and as an administrator, for more than 40 years.

I learned afterwards that I had been received as family because almost every home had an ancient photograph of an uncle, cousin or grandfather dressed and sideburned precisely as I appear on The Onedin Line.

In an early seafaring role, he had a cameo in Ben-Hur as the hortator aboard a Roman galley leading up to the epic battle with an enemy fleet.

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