Anne Travers
Needs more detailed information from The Web of Fear and Birds of Passage.
These omissions are so great that the article's factual accuracy has been compromised. Check out the discussion page and revision history for further clues about what needs to be updated in this article.
Dame Anne Bishop OBE (née Travers) was the second child of Margaret and Edward Travers and scientific advisor to the British Army in its fight against the Great Intelligence and its Robot Yeti in the London Underground.
Biography
Early life
Anne was born on 28 October 1937, eighteen months after her brother, Alun Travers. Her mother died in 1943. (PROSE: Night of the Intelligence) She took after her mother's side of the family in appearance, but took after her father in personality. (PROSE: One Cold Step) She grew up on bedtime stories of the Yetis and the Doctor. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Web of Fear)
During her childhood she rarely had any contact with her Uncle Vincent (her father's twin) or her cousins, Deborah, Joseph and Patrick, usually only when they all visited the grandfather's house at the same time. This was down to Edward's estrangement from the Travers family, a result of his obsession with the Goff family. (PROSE: The Dreamer's Lament)
She would tell Captain Knight years later that she became a scientist because "when I was a little girl I thought I'd like to be a scientist, so I became a scientist." (TV: The Web of Fear)
Professor Rachel Jensen was one of her lecturers at the University of Cambridge. Her classmates included Allison Williams and Ruth Ingram. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice) She was also friends with Liz Shaw. (PROSE: Mind of Stone, The Enfolded Time) Another one of her teachers was Professor Watkins who described her as a "brilliant girl". (TV: The Invasion)
Anne Travers spent time in America before being called back to Britain by her father, after he accidentally directed the Great Intelligence to London. (TV: The Web of Fear)
Career
Anne and her father helped the Doctor defeat the malevolent entity. (TV: The Web of Fear) Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart subsequently named her as the first scientific advisor of his new forces dealing with alien threats. (AUDIO: Memories of Tomorrow) However, she was summoned back by the British Army and sequestered to a secret Vault in Northumberland to help develop new defensive weapons based on the remains of the Great Intelligence's technologies. She devised two machines, one based on the device she developed with the Doctor previously, which interrupted the Great Intelligence's control of Yeti. Another device, labelled a "web destructor" by Major Douglas, was able to evaporate the Great Intelligence's web. Both devices were used in the Cornish village of Bledoe. (PROSE: The Forgotten Son)
She became highly suspicious of the Vault and its true agenda, and as acting as a spy inside it for General Oliver Hamilton. (PROSE: Beast of Fang Rock) After a Vault Citadel had been captured, she was taken out to work for the Home-Army Fifth Operational Corps and quickly grew frustrated that without a proper lab during the move to Dolerite Base, she had nothing to do for weeks. She went out to investigate BLIMEY with Samson Ware mainly out of boredom. (PROSE: Moon Blink, The Showstoppers)
During this time she maintained contact with William Bishop, and eventually realised the depth of her feeling for him. Upon the advice of her friend, Ruth McGrath, Anne finally asked Bishop out on a date, and they officially became an 'item'. (PROSE: Moon Blink, The Lost Skin, Mind of Stone, Night of the Intelligence, The Daughters of Earth, The Dreamer's Lament)
Tragedy struck in January 1970, when her father's mind was consumed by the Great Intelligence. He was 'saved' by Thonmi Rinpoche, and Anne was able to say goodbye to him on the astral plane. However, it took her a few months to find a way to deal with the loss, and it wasn't until March that she felt able to finally tell her brother, and their family, about Edward's death. Anne then, with Alun, went to see their cousin Deborah, now married to Frank Walker and living in Aylesbury, to try and contact their father's brother. They learned that Vincent had died some years earlier. Anne and Alun held a funeral service for Edward Travers on Wednesday 25th March, which was attended by Anne, Alun, Lethbridge-Stewart, Bill Bishop, Harold Chorley and several members of the Travers and Goff family, including Deborah and her brothers, Patrick and Joe (the latter attended with his own wife and son). After this, the cousins all agreed to remain in touch, repair the damage left by their respective fathers. (PROSE: Night of the Intelligence, The Dreamer's Lament)
She built a healthy friendship with Sally Wright, and was there to support her following the end of Sally's relationship with Lethbridge-Stewart. (PROSE: The Dreamer's Lament)
Three years later, Anne and her father visited the United States for a year, letting out his home in London to Professor Watkins and his niece Isobel. (TV: The Invasion) Part of the reason for the trip was the help establish the scientific arm of the US side of UNIT, working alongside Major Adrienne Kramer. (PROSE: Night of the Intelligence)
She succeeded Jensen as chief scientific advisor to the Cabinet in 1981, serving in that position for eighteen years. (PROSE: The Enfolded Time, The Slow Invasion, The Two Brigadiers, Avatars of the Intelligence)
Later life
Anne and Bishop were married 1989 and had a son, Samuel. They were still married by 2017. (PROSE: The Enfolded Time, The Slow Invasion, The Two Brigadiers, Avatars of the Intelligence) In late 1989, she visited America with her father, leaving the care of Owain Lethbridge-Stewart in the hands of Liz Shaw. (PROSE: The Enfolded Time)
On 31 December 1999, Dame Anne Travers OBE, believing that Ashley Chapel was planning to summon the Great Intelligence, attempted to stop him, accidentally causing London to transform into a mystical realm in which she was the "Hierophant Anastasia". She later sacrificed herself to restore London to normal. (PROSE: Millennial Rites)
In November 2011, after the Brigadier attended the funeral of Joan Pemberton, Anne and Bill visited him at the nursing home. They believed him about the Gnome he found, that it helped him travel back to 1981, and soon were astral projected through time along with him. (PROSE: Scary Monsters, Fear of the Web) Anne initially arrived in London 1969, during the London Event, in the body of Rachel Ashcroft. She attempted to pervert the course of history by saving her father from the influence of the Great Intelligence. She sought the help of Ruby Slant, and later learned that she had always been a part of events and was the reason Rachel was killed during the Event. (PROSE: Fear of the Web)
In 2017, Dame Anne Bishop helped Lucy Wilson save London from the Great Intelligence. (PROSE: Avatars of the Intelligence)
In 2018 Bill and Anne were taken out of retirement to help a crisis about time being changed in the year 1896. (PROSE: An Ordinary Man)
On Saturday 28 May, 2022, Anne died peacefully in her sleep. (PROSE: The Stories We Tell)
Alternate timeline
In an alternative timeline where the Doctor was shot by Colonel Pemberton, Anne's mind was subsumed by the Intelligence and her body used as its host. (PROSE: Legacies)
Behind the scenes
Anne's given date of birth in Night of the Intelligence [+]Loading...["Night of the Intelligence (novel)"] makes her exactly eleven months older than her actor, Tina Packer.
