Alice Guppy
Alice Guppy worked for Torchwood Cardiff (the future Torchwood 3) in the late Victorian era. She was in a relationship with fellow Torchwood agent Emily Holroyd.
Biography
Alice Guppy was an orphan with a criminal background. (PROSE: The Baby Farmers) She originally lived and worked in Scotland. (PROSE: Risk Assessment) In 1898, future partner Emily Holroyd offered her a pardon in exchange for working for the Torchwood Institute following the loss of another, male, operative who had also operated out of Cardiff. Holroyd believed that Guppy's willingness to steal and kill could come in useful. (WEB: Torchwood.org.uk)
The pair offered Jack Harkness a place at Torchwood on discovering that he couldn't die and possibly knew about the Doctor. Alice found Jack attractive but avowed that she found Emily more so. She came into conflict with Jack when he witnessed her cold-bloodedly executing a blowfish alien Jack had captured on his first assignment. (TV: Fragments) She was sadistic on several occasions, delighting in assaulting and torturing Jack on first meeting him (TV: Fragments); she may have been deeply mentally unbalanced (TV: Exit Wounds).
Around 1899, Alice and the rest of Torchwood infiltrated and destroyed the HMS Hades after it was found to be a lab for experimenting on aliens. (PROSE: The Baby Farmers)
By noticing energy signals in 1901, she discovered a version of Jack from the future, who had been buried by Gray and John Hart in 27 AD. At his request, she and Charles Gaskell placed Jack in cryogenic suspension until 2009 so that he could avoid crossing his own timeline. (TV: Exit Wounds)
Alice apparently died while in service to Torchwood. As of the early 21st century, her body lay in cryogenic suspension in Bay 12 of the morgue of the Hub. (WEB: Torchwood.org.uk) It is unknown if her body survived the destruction of the Hub in 2009. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
Behind the scenes
- A Torchwood agent resembling Alice appears in the IDW Publishing Doctor Who comic, The Time Machination. However it is unlikely it is her as the story is set in 1889 and she joined Torchwood nine years later.
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