Theory:Timeline - 19th century

From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference
Index → Timey-wimey detector → Timeline - 19th century
Spoilers are strongly policed here.
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.


This page lists the order of stories in the Doctor Who Universe timeline from 1 January 1800 to 31 December 1899. (For the purposes of this timeline, 1800 will be considered part of the 19th century given the "Year 0" discrepancy.) This timeline is based upon observations of the Doctor Who universe and the events that occur during each of these stories.

The layout of this timeline is in part based on the observations on Doctor Who - The Complete Adventures, as well as Lance Parkin's AHistory and other sources that allow us to make observations, such as Doctor Who Reviews, Clive Banks databanks, and LegoK9's timeline. None of these sources should be used solely as a source or considered a "true" timeline for stories.

Timeline rules:

  • Only list stories. References to dates that the story does not take place in are to be excluded.
  • Stories without any clear indication of an era should be omitted. (e.g. TV: Mummy on the Orient Express)
  • Many stories will contradict each other, so these contradictions should be noted but treated equally. (e.g. TV: The Enemy of the World and other stories set in 2018)
  • Direct quotes indicating the time period the story takes place should be provided. (Quotes sourced from another story should indicate the story it is from.)

Format (list all available):

  • Day Month Year - MEDIUM: Story title
CHARACTER/TEXT/NOTE: Indication of time period

Timeline[[edit source]]

Previous page: Universe Timeline - 18th century

1800s[[edit source]]

POLLY: This is the Battle of Trafalgar, I'm sure of it. I remember it from school. October twenty-first, 1805.
DOCTOR: Not in the year 1806. George the Third is on the throne, William Pitt is Prime Minister, and ladies fight with witticisms and the occasional fan. Not with edged weapons.
YAZ: It's 1807.

1810s[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: Ha. Where do you hide a spaceship in 1813?
DOCTOR: Our London. We're on the Thames. The last great Frost Fair. 1814, February the fourth.
DOCTOR: Last day before the thaw. Thought I'd better find a more reliable parking spot.
VICKI: And this was a frost fair - the last one ever he said.
VICKI: By then the great frost was thawing. It had started to rain, but this was 1814 so there were no decent umbrellas.
DOCTOR: Wallonia, the southern part of Belgium. And as for the date? The early hours of the morning of the eighteenth of June, 1815.
MARY: It was eighteen-sixteen, the year without a summer, when we sojourned at the Villa Diodati.
MARY: It was while we were there, one dreary night in June, that I first met the traveller known as the Doctor.
DOCTOR: This night, June 1816, Byron challenges Mary Polidori and Percy Shelley to come up with a ghost story.
'Summer 1816' 'Mid Summer 1816' 'Late Summer 1816'
THE DOCTOR: Mm. Eighteen Eighteen. A time of hope, and a long way from our other port of call. Ready?
'Spring 1819'

1820s[[edit source]]

PERI: I could have been stuck in the eighteen hundreds forever.
SOURCE?
BARBARA: Ienari was one of the last of the Tokugawa shoguns. If he's been in charge for thirty years, that makes this some time in the 1820s.
'Summer 1822'
'Summer 1824'
TEXT: Madhya Province, India. 1825
CAPTION: The Irish Sea, 1826.
'Spring 1827'
HANS: Eighteen Twenty-Seven, actually. Look, who are you?
FRAU TOD: It was supposed to be a surprise. Hans is spending the Christmas holidays with us.
DOCTOR: Christmas 1828?
MARY: Christmas? You're right, of course. I hadn't realised. Not much cause for celebration in West Port.
DOCTOR: Ah. Short jump into the future. Twenty eighth January 1829, to be precise. Out of his selfimposed time bubble.
'Summer 1829'

1830s[[edit source]]

TEXT: Scotland. 1830
'Autumn 1830'
TEXT: In the winter of 1832, the Seminole marched west.
DOCTOR (The Dead Shoes): First the tea, and when it's ready I'll you about 1832 and the circus of doom.
DOCTOR: Ah, 1833! You see Romana? 1833!
JOSIE: I think Captain Finlay said it was 1833.
BABBAGE: The year, madam, remains 1834.
DARWIN: September the nineteenth, eighteen hundred and thirty five. Upon our return to the Beagle, our immediate task was to prepare suitable lodgings for our guest, Miss Evelyn Smythe.

1840s[[edit source]]

Summer 1840
Winter 1840
Summer 1842
If ever there was a time and place not to be, Afghanistan in 1842 was it.
TEXT: England, 1842.
March 1843 - Jabalhabad, India
DOCTOR: Well done Tegan. That's why I've brought you here on this precise day, the 23rd of October, 1843.
TEXT: Derbyshire, 1845
Spring 1846
Winter 1847
ALBERT: The year was 1847, and I was being borne by royal carriage across the Murgin Pass, a journey already perilous enough.
Spring 1848
October 2nd, 1849
So it is done, and I have committed the events of the past few hours to paper. It is past midnight and my story is complete; and yet I continue writing as if, somehow, my continued existence depends upon the incompleteness of my tale.

1850s[[edit source]]

1851[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: The Crystal Palace, Charley. Or what came to be known as the Crystal Palace. Designed by Joseph Paxton to house the great exhibition of the wo-
CHARLEY: works of all nations, Hyde Park, London, 1851.
CHARLEY: Oh, it's the middle of summer, and I'm baking hot!
DOCTOR: We're too early, what year is this?
NYSSA: 1851.
NATHANIEL: Why, you are in London, on the twelfth of September, year of our lord eighteen hundred and fifty-one!
BOY: Christmas Eve, sir. Year of our Lord 1851, sir.

1852[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: There, 1852. Two days after we left London.

1853[[edit source]]

TEXT: October 1853, Strines.

1854[[edit source]]

TEXT: January 1854, Strines.
DOCTOR: The year is eighteen fifty-four, and please, try not to reveal to Faraday your knowledge of the future.
DOCTOR: This is it Ace! The port of Sebastopol, on the night of September the 25th, 1854.
DOCTOR: A hypersonic pulse eminating from the area of Turkey, at 10:14 PM, on the 19th of November, 1854.

1855[[edit source]]

'The year was 1855 and Mary, mother Seacole to her customers, had been in Balaclava for seven months.'
SOURCE?
CAPTION: The journal of Doctor Thomas Gideon, Oct. 13th 1855.

1856[[edit source]]

BREWSTER: Then one night, one icey black night, after I'd been there five years or so, that's when it happened. [5 years from 1851]

1858[[edit source]]

BREWSTER: Another year passed, and another. And every few months, I would have the dream again.

1859[[edit source]]

K9: The year is 1859, master.
K9: November the 15th.

1860s[[edit source]]

1861[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: You saw that newspaper in the village pub, this is 1861. We need to get acclimatised.
ALADDIN: Is it still 1861?
DOCTOR: Yes, and yes!
You have been with us now, boy, for ten years. It is time for you to go forward into the world. [10 years from 1851]

1862[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. This is how you fulfil your dream, Elizabeth. [Real world year.]

1863[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: America in 1863!
"'I am your superior. You may call me Lord, or Master.' The abbot Cheng remembered from nearly two years ago spread his hands to either side." [2 years before 1865]

1864[[edit source]]

WILTON: Petersburg was 1864.
WILTON: Battle of Elliot Salient, Petersburg, Virginia. Mineshaft under the confederate lines, the fuse was lit on the morning of July the 30th at 3:15am. Your friend Nyssa'a on Elliot Salient! It says here the federal forces blow up Elliot Salient. They list the fuse 30 seconds ago!

1865[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: And the year.. 1865. Ring any bells?
FORD: Oh, sure, sure, sure. It's April 14th.
BREWSTER: When you were in the shop with Creek, I was in the back room. Not me now, but 2 years since. [2 years before 1867]
"The sun was already sinking when Vicki followed Fei-Hung and Barbara out through the gates of Po Chi Lam, and into what she now knew to be the city of Guangzhou in the year 1865."
"It was a pleasant September day as they relaxed on the boat carrying them down the Pearl River towards the city."

1866[[edit source]]

MAXTIBLE: You're in my house, some miles from Canterbury. The date is June the 2nd, eighteen hundred and sixty six.
SHUGGY (in 1916): What do you think I've been doing for the last fifty years?
IRENE: And the Battle of Ridgeway, a century and a half from now [1711].
NOTE: Real world year.
TO-DO LIST (The Pictures of Josephine Day): Philippot’s Magisterial Delights, Theater Royal, Edinburgh, 6th October, 1866.

1867[[edit source]]

TEXT: AD1867, Scotland
LITEFOOT: It's just reminded me of something I haven't thought about for years. Back when I was a student, in 1867.
NYSSA: The year is 1867?
HARTWRIGHT: November the 14th, about half past 5 O'clock by the bells.

1868[[edit source]]

NYSSA (Time Reef): Doctor, Thomas may have left us for five months... [five months since The Haunting of Thomas Brewster (1867)]
BRENDA: It's unbe-blooming-lievable. You've been gone all of six weeks!
TEXT: The Royal College of Surgeons. London, England. 1868
DOCTOR: --And the year is 1868.
TEXT: Coutts Bank, The Strand, London, February 1868

1869[[edit source]]

'Summer 1869'
DOCTOR: I did it. Give the man a medal. Earth, Naples, December 24th, 1860. ... It's not 1860, it's 1869.

1870s[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: The American frontier in the 1870s, within the reach of our assassin.

1870[[edit source]]

DOCTOR (The Feast of Axos): Very well. Your own time, did you say? (FX: DOCTOR OPERATING TARDIS CONTROLS.) Let’s see… how about eighteen-seventy? Near enough?
Assuming no time travel was involved.
ISAAC: Them being scared scares me. War only ended five years back. That old violence is still under the surface.
SURESH: December 1870

1872[[edit source]]

IAN: Really? I haven't seen the joke yet, I must say. One thing I did see, by the way. The name of that ship we were on: The Mary Celeste.
PROSE Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe: "One such occasion involved the mysterious legend of the Mary Celeste, an American merchant brigantine found adrift and abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872."

1873[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: By my calculations - we are in the year 1873, in the city of New York!
MARY: The eleventh of September…
MARY: Eighteen hundred and seventy-three?
DROSSEL: Good evening, sir.
PUPPET BRATFISCH (later): Morning, sir. Cab for you?

1878[[edit source]]

JOHN: There was Deadwood, 1878...

1879[[edit source]]

NEWSPAPER: 28th December, 1879.
DOCTOR: 1879. Same difference
RACHEL (New Girl): On the 31st of December 1879, Queen Victoria issued a charter creating the Torchwood Institute.

1880s[[edit source]]

'A trip out to the English countryside was a splendid thing, no doubt, he was thinking, and a pleasant change from the hustle and bustle of London. It would be a few decades before the motor car began to invade the city, but it was still a noisy, restless place, and a well- prepared cup of tea in the quiet was very welcome.' [The motor car became common in the early 20th century]
'‘That doesn’t really narrow it down, Your Grace.’ ‘Oklahoma, I think. Did you see that on your travels?’' [As revealed in COMIC: The Parliament of Fear, Oklahoma was known as Indian Territory in 1880]

1880[[edit source]]

CAPTION: The Tardis materialises on the bank of the river Nile during the year 1880, in the middle of a game of cricket being played by British soldiers stationed in Egypt...
TEXT: In the spring of 1880, in a land that would someday be called Oklahoma...

1881[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: Mars. 1881, or thereabouts. According to the Tardis, that's when the message was made.
NOTE: The historical gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
DOCTOR (The Magic Mousetrap): I never read the Tattler unless I'm at the dentist. And I've not been to the dentist since eighteen eighty-one.

1882[[edit source]]

CAPTION: Deadwood, Dakota Territory. March 1882.
TEXT: London, 1882, was very different from the world in which I grew to maturity.
TEXT: 25 January 1883. 21:10.

1883[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: This is Inspector MacKenzie from Scotland Yard. He was sent here in 1881 to investigate the disappearance of the owner, Sir George Pritchard.
ACE: But that was two years ago.
"He was exactly where he needed to be: Krakatoa, 1883. Two hours before the eruption.

1884[[edit source]]

BURROWS: Ladies and gentlemen in the public gallery. Gentlemen of the jury. This court is now in session, convened on this 19th day of May, 1884.

1885[[edit source]]

DOCTOR: 1179 AD. Add a time deflection coefficient of seven hundred and six years, that is 1885 AD.
CLEMENCY: It was forty years ago, in the heat of Delhi, late one night. I was alone, and that's when I saw it. I loved him so much, it didn't matter. But he was stolen from me. 1885, the year of the great monsoon.
NARRATOR: On a shiny, flashing surface he saw the date: 15th of September, 1885. That, at least, was recognisable.
‘Tell me, boy.’ said the Doctor, ‘what day is this?’ The boy smiled. ‘Why, sir,’ he said, ‘it’s Christmas Day.’ ‘I see,’ the Doctor replied. ‘And, er, could you tell me the year?’ The boy looked amused, but asked no questions. ‘It’s 1885, sir,’ he told them, and went on his way.

1886[[edit source]]

TEXT: The Pacific Ocean, 1886.

1887[[edit source]]

TEXT: London, 1887

1888[[edit source]]

TEXT: London, 1888 A.D.

1889[[edit source]]

CAPTION: London, 1889.
NOTE: The ending recreates the the Fourth Doctor and Leela's entrance in The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

1890s[[edit source]]

MISSY: ...And now here I stick, exiled to 19th century Earth like some common time urchin.
MISSY: It's a Layline, Oliver, and we're activating it
MISSY: Acch, look it up in about 30 years. [ley lines were coined in 1921]
COSMO (Brimstone and Terror): Two years you confined me. Two years with nothing to study but obsolete paperwork.
NOTE: Since this is set two years before Brimstone and Terror, a story which features Strax, A Spoonful of Mayhem must be set in 1886 at the earliest, as Strax joined the Paternoster Gang in 1888.
DOCTOR: In fact, I estimate that the current relative Earth date is around the late 1800s.

1890[[edit source]]

'Spring 1890'
BLACK: Well, in that case, probably somewhere between the first and third of June. 1890. Less than a year before, before he killed himself.
TEXT: France 1890
DOCTOR: 26th of June, 1890. The recently opened Savoy Hotel.
NOTE: Real word date. Vincent shoots himself in a field.

1892[[edit source]]

The date Edvard Munch wrote about seeing the sky turn blood red, as mentioned by characters in the opening.
TEXT: Five Points District, New York City. 1892.
NOTE: Set shortly before The Talons of Weng-Chiang, with the TARDIS arriving just as River departs London.
"It was a tough, savage place, this London of the eighteen nineties; a place of contrasts."
GUINEVERE: So your great grandfather spoke of Li'Sen? His last appearances were at the Palace in 1892, just before his mysterious disappearance. (AUDIO: The Case of the Gluttonous Guru)
DOCTOR WHO: Interesting. It's coming from only three years ahead of our current point in time. From Eighteen Ninety-Five or thereabouts. (AUDIO: Destination: Nerva) [Follows on from The Talons of Weng-Chiang]
"Throughout history, 19 March has been a day of enormous importance... Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there are reports of a huge rat being found, shot dead in the London sewers on that date." (PROSE: There’s a storm coming: 19 March)
ALT PLACEMENT: TEXT: London, 1889. (COMIC: The Time Machination) [Ending recreates the beginning of The Talons of Weng-Chiang]
Follows directly on from The Mahogany Murders.
NOTE: Authorial intent places this series in 1892. (BFX: Jago & Litefoot: Series One)
ELLIE: (possessed) They're here. Come, my brothers. Welcome to your new bodies. Welcome to the 19th century.
JAGO: And don't you forget it. Now, where was I? Gentlemen, what have I not done? You will no doubt have heard of the Palace Theatre, of which I had the good fortune of being the owner, manager, and Master of Ceremonies until its unfortunate demise in the demonic deflagration a few years back.
NOTE: Directly after The Similarity Engine.
GREGORY: November the twenty-sixth, 1892. Hello Doctor.
JENNY: Well, it is nearly Christmas.
JENNY: Merry Christmas!
TOMBSTONE: Clara Oswin Oswald. Remember me, we shall meet again. Born November 23 1866, died December 24, 1892.

1893[[edit source]]

DAVID SACKER (The Age of Revolution): Diary of Doctor Ormond Sacher, 1892. Today I was once again embroiled in another of professor Litefoot's escapades. [Meaning Ormond Sacker dies in either 1892 or 1893]
NOTE: Directly after The Ruthven Inheritance
JAGO: Well it's August.
JAGO: Well yes, but it's my theatre. I'm rather fond of it, you see.
LITEFOOT: You've only been here a few months.
JAGO: Our pantomime in December. That Robin Hood cove was quoting it. [Jago moved into the Regency Theatre in The Theatre of Dreams. This sets that story in the previous year, since a) Jago's only been in the theatre for a few months, and b) the previous story was set in August]
PAYNE: 1890, give or take a few years.
LITEFOOT: It's odd. You an I, Jago and Miss Leela. We've come across some of the most vile and appalling things over the last year or so...
NOTE: Directly after The Lonely Clock.
LITEFOOT (The Age of Revolution): Or to put it another way, we're only a few days older than we were in 1893.
LITEFOOT: A book I wrote, published in 1893. It turned up at my shop.
JAGO: Of course, I remember Ellie telling me about it. And you haven't written a book yet.
LITEFOOT: He said he set it for 1893.
JAGO: Thank goodness for that.. we've arrived.
NOTE: Directly after The Final Act.
CURRUTHERS: I came looking for Henry because I thought that chap Rhys might have put a fluence on me, and I recalled Henry telling me that he had once consulted the great Sigmund Freud. [Jago met Freud in Return of the Repressed]
NOTE: Percival Quick is still a Sergeant and Jago & Litefoot are not fugitives.
DOCTOR: This is Ireland, 1893.
DOCTOR: Okay, so. Not London 1893. Yorkshire 1893. Near enough.
TEXT: London 1893 - prison cell
STRAX: Field Report D004/D. It is my duty to inform your of recent developments in the county of Yorkshire in the Earth year of 1893.
STRAX: Field Report D006/B. I find myself compelled to inform you of a recent disruption in the time continuum on Planet Earth, affecting the Earth years 1893 and 1544.
STRAX: The three of us had been tasked with locating a human who had been stealing scientific equipment from universities in 1893.
PLUMSTEAD: I've absorbed approximately forty-two years from his future timeline.
STRAX: You mean, I'm nearly sixty? [Meaning Strax is nearly 18]
STRAX (A Good Man Goes to War): It's all right. I've had a good life. I'm nearly twelve. [set in 1888]
VASTRA: About three weeks ago.
VASTRA: September 3rd; a sighting of a spectral agency in southeast London.
NOTE: Strax is unaware of the function of the Greenwich Observatory, setting this before The Curious Case of the Miniature Menaces (February 1894), where he is well aware.

1894[[edit source]]

"The vast barges dredging the floors of the River Thames were sounding their lunchtimes sirens as Madame Vastra, Strax and I arrived at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, one bright yet chilly day in February 1894.
"Life has been quiet in Paternoster Row during the spring of 1894 and Madame Vastra was bored.
"It was the first week of June 1894 when Faye Garrideb, an old friend, had arrived at the house in Paternoster Row, begging for help.
NOTE: Follows directly on from Military Intelligence.
JAGO: All we've done in the two days since the fire is skulk around in back alleys like a couple of vagabonds.
CONAN DOYLE: So look at the postmark. Some of these letters were posted on the 8th.
LITEFOOT: But when we were knocked out by the gas, it was the 7th.
LAURA: …And we were marooned.
LITEFOOT: In the year 1894.
BASKERVILLE: About three weeks ago to be precise.
DOCTOR (The Relics of Time): Paris 1894, that's our next stop.
"Autumn came early in the year of 1894. The fog and rain came in early September and Madame Vastra was bored of life in the capital.
"One fine evening, in the early autumn of 1894
"The evening of 15th November 1894 was bitterly cold, but the neighbours were doing their best to warm things up.
"Perishing, it was, as dawn broke on the morning of December 12th 1894."
OLIVER: I never knew that. You never said it was your birthday.
OLIVER: Says here: Rowan Fairley, December 22nd, eighteen--
COSMO: Two years you confined me. Two years with nothing to study but obsolete paperwork. [setting this two years after A Spoonful of Mayhem]
NOTE: Strax is present, setting this definitively in 1888 at the earliest.
"…and picked up the now much-reduced magazine, a Christmas 1893 edition of The Strand. It was a vital issue, containing the original printing of 'The Final Problem', one of the pivotal Sherlock Holmes stories - and indeed, initially intended by Conan Doyle to be the last before a public outcry encouraged him to resurrect the famous detective." (PROSE: The Bodysnatchers)
LITEFOOT: As we were saying, it's one year since his passing. You know, that dreadful business at Reichenbach.
NOTE: Follows directly on from Murder at Moorsey Manor.
NOTE: Follows on from Spring-Heeled Jack.

1895[[edit source]]

JENNY: No, I meant anything that might be to do with our break-in last week. [The break-in occurred at the start of the story]
VASTRA: But there's a new Oscar Wilde on at the Haymarket, we haven't been to the theatre since the unfortunate incident with Ellen Terry.
NOTE: Oscar Wilde had two plays premiere at the Haymarket, A Woman of No Importance on 19 April 1893 and An Ideal Husband on 3 January 1895.
"It was the 14th February 1894, and I was looking forward to a quiet Valentine's Day in Paternoster Row."
VASTRA: As I was saying; since the character's definitive demise at the foot of Reichenbach Falls, I've nursed the hope that the unwanted comparison so frequently made between us might eventually cease.
NOTE: As per The Bodysnatchers, Sherlock's death occurred in December 1893, setting this story after then.
FRENCH LITEFOOT: Eighty years ago, after we defeated your Duke at Waterloo. [The Battle of Waterloo was in 1815]
LITEFOOT: Now, what have we here? Last will and testament on this seventeenth day of... oh no.
LITEFOOT: He then explained that the box, the yesterday box, had the singular property that it received mail posted thirty years hence.
LITEFOOT: The note said it should be posted on the night of the thirtieth. That's tonight!
LITEFOOT: It's just reminded me of something I haven't thought about for years. Back when I was a student, in 1867.
JAGO: 1891, good year that. It was before things like this started happening to us.
ELLIE: Oh, well, ah, where do I begin. Well I suppose the first night is the two of them when they were in here a few years ago. Thick as thieves, they was, talking about a Doctor.

1896[[edit source]]

"It was early in the year of 1896, and Vastra, Strax and myself were among the guests at London’s Polytechnic Institute, where the inventors Auguste and Pierre Lumière were set to demonstrate their latest invention – moving pictures!"
“No, it’s weird because we are in the right place,” she managed to cut in. “West Ham. Monday 20th April, 1896.”
TEXT: 18 Causeyside Street, Paisley, Scotland, 1896.
TEXT: San Francisco 1896.

1898[[edit source]]

LUCIE: Yeah, yeah. It's 1898 and the consequences for the timeline could be disasterous.
NOTE: Information displayed by the adverts in the The Times can be used to place this story between January and September 1898.

1899[[edit source]]

GIRL: He's coming, the one you're looking for. But the century will turn twice before you find each other again.
JACK: Ooo. Are you for real? You mean I have to wait a hundred years to find him? What'll I do in the meantime?
DOCTOR: ...that business with Greel, over 10 years ago! [Referring to the events of The Talons of Weng-Chiang]
Jack is a member of Torchwood, so Fragments is prior to this.
DOCTOR: Yes, Roz. Northumberland, England, 1899.
NYSSA: Boxing day, you said. It sounds utterly barbaric.
NYSSA: Well, I did and I didn't, but 1899 is too primitive for me.
Next page: Theory:Timeline - 20th century
Retrieved from "https://tardis.wiki/w/index.php?title=Theory:Timeline_-_19th_century&oldid=3861224"