Henry Avery
Captain Henry Avery was a naval officer in the 1690s who eventually became a pirate seeking to increase his wealth. He had done so, leaving his wife and son Toby behind in England, his wife dying in his absence.
Biography
In 1699, three years after his departure from home, Captain Avery was returning from an successful plundering of Mughal treasure. Midjourney his ship, Fancy, encountered the Siren who began taking the crew away after marking them with a black spot. Unknown to him at first, his son had stowed away on the ship. His son had fallen ill with Typhoid fever (incurable in the 1690s) and had been marked by the siren but not yet taken due to his hiding place onboard.
The Doctor came aboard Fancy during this crisis and investigated the Siren. He identified Avery's treasure as allowing the Siren to attack and told Avery it must be thrown overboard. He did so but secretly kept one crown, which later allowed the Siren to take his son. This revealed how possessed he was by greed and forced him to reassess what he valued.
Eventually the Doctor realised that the Siren was in fact an automated doctor of an alien spacecraft, rather than a demon. Avery eventually let himself be taken to her hospital in order to care for his son and crew. As his son would surely die upon his return to England, he chose to stay with him in the alien ship.
As the Doctor saw it as important to send the ship back into space, Avery, with his crew (from Fancy) and son, flew the spaceship away from Earth towards the Dog Star. (DW: The Curse of the Black Spot)
Prior to this, Avery hid his treasure in the crypt of a church outside a small Cornish village. Captain Samuel Pike led his men in a search for the treasure. (DW: The Smugglers)
Behind the scenes
- There is some dispute about the spelling of the historical Avery's last name. Some records have it as Every or Avary, Since no episode of Doctor Who actually shows us his name written out, all three spellings remain possible in the DWU.
