Barbara Wright
From WhoniverseWiki
| Barbara Chesterton[1] (née Wright) | |
|---|---|
| Character | |
| Companion of | The First Doctor |
| Created by | Verity Lambert (Producer) |
| Played by | Jacqueline Hill |
| Gender | Female |
| Species | Human |
| First Appearance | An Unearthly Child |
| Native Place | London, Earth |
| Native Time | 20th Century |
| Alias | none known |
| Occupation | History Teacher |
| Member of | Coal Hill School |
| Known Friends | The First Doctor, Susan Foreman, Vicki Pallister |
| Known Enemies | The Daleks, various enemies of the Doctor |
| Known Relatives | Ian Chesterton (husband), John Chesterton (son), Joan Wright (mother)[2], Gertrude (aunt)[3], Margaret (aunt)[4], Philadelphius (son from an alternative timeline)[5] |
| Base of Operations | London, formerly the Doctor's TARDIS |
Barbara Wright was a companion of the First Doctor. For the alternative version of the character who appeared in Dr. Who and the Daleks see Barbara Wright (film)
Contents |
Description
Barbara is a history teacher, who unwillingly joined the Doctor on his travels. During their travels, she fell in love with Ian Chesterton, a colleague of hers who was also on the TARDIS.[6].
Barbara is not a big drinker, and used to make a single spritzer last all evening.[7] She is not afraid of heights[8]
Abilities
As a history teacher, Barbara has a wide variety of historical knowledge. Periods with which she is familiar include Marco Polo's travels[9], pre-Columbus Central America[10], the French Revolution[11], Ptolemaic Egypt[12]. the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras[13], and the Tudor era[14]
Barbara can drive a truck.[15] She makes very good upside down cake.[16] Barbara is proficient at horse riding.[17] She can perform artificial resuscitation.[18]
History
Note: Like many recurring characters, we do not know the precise order in which Barbara experienced her adventures. Placement of some stories in the timeline and the history section is speculative.
Early Life
Barbara was born in either 1932 or 1939.[22]
As a child during the war, Barbara was burnt by V1 wreckage and evacuated from London.[23]
When she was 10, Barbara was ill with Whooping Cough. During this illness, she read a Ladybird book about Captain Cook.[24]
When she was 12, Barbara was in Form 2A at Cricklewood Grammar School. One of the questions in her history exam this year was about Rome.[25]
Aged 13, Barbara tried to persuade her father to take her to the Tower of London.[26]
At some point, Barbara became familiar with Bedfordshire, including knowing how to get there from London.[27]
Barbara's father built steamboats, which she occasionally went aboard. He taught her about naval superstitions regarding women.[28]
During her first year at University, Barbara got drunk for the first and only time. She was taken home by law student Herbert Effemy. One of her specialities in her history degree was the Aztec period.[29]
Barbara once spent some time in student accomodation in France.[30]
In 1952, Barbara worked in Hampstead High School for girls[31]
In November 1954, Barbara was a student teacher in Cricklewood.[32]
Barbara once spent some time in Australia, although it was more of a rest than a holiday. At some point, she was married, but then divorced.[33]
At some point, Barbara met Peter Sellers.[34]
At this point in her life, Barbara kept a diary. She had a friend who went to teach in America, and who sent Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique to Barbara as she felt she would be interested. Barbara had almost finished it when she left.[35]
Coal Hill
Barbara started teaching at Coal Hill School, although certain school governors opposed her appointment. Her classroom was number C4, and the children called her Rosa Kleb (in reference to the film From Russia with Love)[36]
When Barbara got her job at Coal Hill, her dad took her out for a celebratory Italian meal at a restaurant called Vincenzo's.[37]
Barbara met her colleague science teacher Ian Chesterton for the first time in a teashop on Tottenham Court Road.[38] During one of the first times that these two teachers saw each other outside of school, Ian helped her with a history trip to London that she had organized at the end of the summer term.[39]
Barbara once organised a party at which her colleague Ian Chesterton met a palmist called Rosemary.[40] Ian once asked Barbara out for a drink after a parents' evening that dragged on until late.[41]
By 1963, Barbara lived in a flat.[42]
Barbara and her colleague Ian Chesterton became curious about the strange behaviour of their pupil Susan Foreman. One night, they went to her home address, Foreman's Yard, and investigated. They met Susan's grandfather, the first Doctor, before hearing Susan's voice from inside what looked like a Police Box. They forced their way into the box, which was actually the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor, fearful that they might reveal the TARDIS's presence to others, and thus change history, took them in a trip back in time.[43]
TARDIS Travels
Barbara was then involved in an encounter with a tribe of cavemen who had lost the secret of fire. Their next trip was to the planet Skaro, where they defeated the Daleks. When the TARDIS left Skaro, the TARDIS's Fast Return Switch became stuck, and the ship tried to warn the crew by sending strange telepathic messages to them, affecting their behaviour towards one another. After this, Ian, Barbara, Susan, and the Doctor became firm friends.[44]
The travellers enjoyed a number of adventures together, as the Doctor tried to return Ian and Barbara home. These included spending several months travelling with Marco Polo, being trapped on the colony world Avalon, where nanobots had created a society where magic worked, a quest to find the keys to the Conscience of Marinus, and a trip to the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, where Barbara was proclaimed a goddess. During this trip, Barbara attempted to change history - persuading the Aztecs to abandon their practice of human sacrifice, in the hope that when the Spanish arrived in the area, they would not be repulsed, and the Aztecs would survive the invasion.[45]
They continued travelling, visiting the Sense Sphere and Revolutionary France. At one point, the travellers found themselves in Medieval England, and encountered Robin Hood. They also spent some time in 1st Century Judea, where Ian and Barbara were trapped inside the besieged town of Masada. After this, they travelled to the city of Arkhaven on the planet Sarath. The planet was about to be rendered uninhabitable, but some of its inhabitants were due to escape in a giant rocket. They also spent some time in the town of Salem, where Susan's telepathic abilities unwittingly intensified the hysteria surrounding that town's infamous Witch Trials. During this trip, Barbara pretended to be Ian's wife in order to avoid suspicion.[46]
The TARDIS subsequently returned to Ian and Barbara's time, but the crew were shrunk to a miniscule size. It then arrived in an alternative version of Earth's future, and the Doctor shut down some time travel experiments. During these events, the travellers met an alternative version of Ian from another timeline. This version of Ian had married Barbara. The TARDIS then materialised on 22nd Century Earth. The planet had been occupied by the Daleks, and the Doctor foiled the invaders' plans to turn Earth into a giant spaceship. During these events, Susan fell in love with a freedom fighter named David Campbell. The Doctor deliberately locked Susan out of the TARDIS so that she would be able to marry David without feeling that she ought to stay with him, whilst Ian and Barbara continued their travels with the Doctor.[47]
The TARDIS's next stop was the planet Venus, three billion years in Barbara's past. Venus was under threat from some aliens called the Sou(ou)Shi. The Doctor stopped them, but had to take the TARDIS away from Venus for a while, with Barbara on board, but not Ian, and it took several trips before they could return to Venus to pick him up. She then travelled to Alexandria, where she spent several years as consort to an alternative universe version of Alexander the Great. However, having grown old, she decided to right history, using a powerful Time Lord object, a book entitled The Ancient and Worshipful Law of Gallifrey. They then travelled to 16th century England, where the TARDIS crew befriended Lady Jane Grey. After that, they arrived on the planet Dido, where they picked up a new passenger, Vicki Pallister.[48]
After leaving Dido, the TARDIS materialised on a cliff top, and fell off. There are two different accounts of what happened next. In one account, the TARDIS crew spent some time separated in the city of Byzantium, reuniting in the midst of violent clashes in the city. They then discovered that the TARDIS had been taken to a villa in Italy. In the other account, they had materialised in Italy, and killed a lion. They were unable to save the life of a slave that lived in a nearby villa, and promised to look after the villa for him. In both versions, they ended up living in an Italian villa for a month.[49]
Ian and Barbara were left on their own by the Doctor and Vicki, who went to see Rome. However, Ian and Barbara were kidnapped. They eventually escaped and made their way back to the villa. During these events, Barbara was given a gold bracelet by the Emperor Nero. They subsequently spent some time in China in the 19th Century. During this trip, Ian proposed to Barbara, arranging to marry her if they ever got back home. After this, they arrived on the planet Vortis, where they helped the butterfly-like Menoptra overthrow the Animus. During these events, Barbara lost the bracelet that Nero had given her. They then arrived in the Holy Land during the 12th Century.[50]
Their next trip took them to the planet Xeros, where they encountered a possible future version of themselves in the museum there. They managed to avoid this fate. The TARDIS then landed in 1605, where Ian and Barbara were mixed up in the events of the famous Gunpowder Plot. After this, they discovered that a group of Daleks had gained the technology to chase the TARDIS. After a series of stops where they had to escape the Daleks, the TARDIS crew managed to defeat the Daleks. Ian and Barbara were able to use the Daleks' time machine to return themselves home.[51] The date when they returned home was 26th June 1965.[52]
After the Doctor
On returning home, Barbara was able to stay with her parents.[53]
A year after their return home, Ian and Barbara married at Gretna Green.[54] Ian and Barbara had a son, John in 1967.[55]
Barbara's grandmother died during the UNIT era.[56] By this point, Barbara and Ian were writing a journal to leave for Susan to find in 2167 and Barbara was doing some teaching at her local Comprehensive.[57]
In 1985, the Associated Examining Board published Journeys Through History: A Sourcebook for GCSE, which Barbara co-wrote with Ian Martin. The book included a passage which drew on Barbara's encounter with Lady Jane Grey[58]
Barbara was still married to Ian by the time they retired. As part of their "back to normality" routine they don't talk about the Doctor. At some point during retirement, Barbara was driving an Audi. She discovered that she had some kind of serious illness and had trouble telling Ian about it.[59]
References
- ↑ Ian and Barbara's marriage is established in Who Killed Kennedy and The Face of the Enemy
- ↑ Joan is named in Long Night (Short Trips: Companions) and The Time Travellers
- ↑ Gertrude is mentioned in Every Day (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury).
- ↑ The Thief of Sherwood (Short Trips: Past Tense)
- ↑ Philadelphius is from The Book of Shadows (Decalog)
- ↑ This is first made explicit in Byzantium!
- ↑ The Time Traveller
- ↑ The Sorcerer's Apprentice
- ↑ Marco Polo (Story)
- ↑ The Keys of Marinus, The Aztecs - where she says that the Aztecs were one of her specialities
- ↑ The Reign of Terror
- ↑ The Book of Shadows (Decalog) - though she apparently knows more about the people than the great wonders
- ↑ The Plotters
- ↑ The Nine Day Queen (Decalog 2)
- ↑ As seen in The Dalek Invasion of Earth (Story)
- ↑ According to the Doctor in Goth Opera
- ↑ This is certainly true by the end of The Nine Day Queen (Decalog 2), though possibly not by the beginning
- ↑ The Nine Day Queen (Decalog 2)
- ↑ This story's place in the list is somewhat arbitrary, assuming that it isn't Unbound
- ↑ It is unclear how Romans Cutaway and Byzantium! can co-exist
- ↑ It is unclear how Romans Cutaway and Byzantium! can co-exist
- ↑ Byzantium! page 50 states that Barbara's first year at University was 1950 and page 77 that it was nearly 20 years since she was 12, giving the 1932 date. Nothing at the End of the Lane says that Susan is 8 years younger than Barbara. If Susan is really 16, this makes Barbara 24, and hence she was born in 1939. Both dates conflict with The Rescue, in which she would have been 550 in 2493 (and hence born in 1943). This date, however, would make her too young to be a teacher by 1963. The 1939 date also conflicts with The Witch Hunters, because she would then have only been 15 or 16 when she became a student teacher and with The Plotters, as she would have had a job in a school at the age of only 13.
- ↑ Nothing at the End of the Lane (Short Trips and Side Steps)
- ↑ According to Byzantium! page 206
- ↑ According to Byzantium! pages 205-206, which reproduce part of her answer.
- ↑ According to Byzantium! page 29
- ↑ As seen in The Dalek Invasion of Earth (Story)
- ↑ The Eleventh Tiger
- ↑ Her drunkenness is from Byzantium! pages 76 and 77. Her speciality is mentioned in the first episode of The Aztecs
- ↑ Face of the Enemy
- ↑ The Plotters. Given what else we know about her timeline, it seems unlikely that this was a proper teaching post.
- ↑ She says this in The Witch Hunters
- ↑ Nothing at the End of the Lane (Short Trips and Side Steps)
- ↑ Nothing at the End of the Lane (Short Trips and Side Steps)
- ↑ Long Night (Short Trips; Companions)
- ↑ Her appointment at Coal Hill was established in An Unearthly Child. All the other details are from Nothing at the End of the Lane (Short Trips and Side Steps)
- ↑ According to Venusian Lullaby
- ↑ According to Byzantium!
- ↑ The Nine Day Queen (Decalog 2)
- ↑ The Splintered Gate (Short Trips: Companions)
- ↑ The Time Travellers
- ↑ Ian mentions her flat in The Forest of Fear, the third episode of An Unearthly Child
- ↑ This is a summary of the first episode of An Unearthly Child
- ↑ As seen in An Unearthly Child, The Daleks, and The Edge of Destruction
- ↑ As seen in Marco Polo (Story), The Sorcerer's Apprentice, The Keys of Marinus, and The Aztecs
- ↑ According to The Sensorites, The Reign of Terror, The Thief of Sherwood (Short Trips: Past Tense), The Last Days (Short Trips), City at World's End, and The Witch Hunters
- ↑ Planet of Giants, The Time Travellers, and The Dalek Invasion of Earth (Story)
- ↑ Venusian Lullaby, The Book of Shadows (Decalog), The Nine Day Queen (Decalog 2), and The Rescue
- ↑ The fall from a cliff is the closing scene of The Rescue and the opening of The Romans. The adventure in Byzantium is from Byzantium!, and that with the lion is Romans Cutaway (More Short Trips). They have spent a month at the villa by the start of The Romans
- ↑ This happened in The Romans, The Eleventh Tiger, The Web Planet, and The Crusades
- ↑ As seen in The Space Museum, The Plotters, and The Chase
- ↑ The Time Travellers
- ↑ According to Face of the Enemy
- ↑ John is first mentioned in Face of the Enemy, and is in primary school by page 55 of that book. Byzantium! page 7 establishes that John was either six and a half or six and a quarter during 1973.
- ↑ John is first mentioned in Goth Opera. He is in primary school by the time of Face of the Enemy page 55. Byzantium! page 7 establishes that John was either six and a half or six and a quarter during 1973
- ↑ This was just before the previous Christmas before Face of the Enemy
- ↑ Also The Face of the Enemy
- ↑ We see an extract in The Nine Day Queen (Decalog 2)
- ↑ Distance (Short Trips: Companions)
