Barbara Wright Barbara Chesterton , née Wright , ( TV : " Death of the Doctor " ) was one of the earliest companion s to travel with the Doctor . Before meeting the First Doctor , Barbara was a history teacher at Coal Hill School in 1960s London . After leaving the Doctor , she had an adventure with his eleventh incarnation , and at the end of that adventure she married close friend and fellow companion Ian Chesterton . ( COMIC : " Hunters of the Burning Stone " ) As well as Ian , she travelled alongside Susan Foreman and Vicki Pallister and was acquainted with Steven Taylor . Biography . Early life . Barbara was the daughter of Joan Wright , and the pair had a very close relationship when Barbara was growing up . ( PROSE : " A Long Night " ) According to one account , her father was killed in the early stages of World War II when she was only a child . She would always carry a photo of him , even during her travels with the Doctor . ( PROSE : " Tell Me You Love Me " , " All I Want for Christmas " ) Another account claimed that her father was still alive at the time Barbara got her job at Coal Hill . ( PROSE : " Venusian Lullaby " ) Barbara used to go to the Malvern Hills as a child . ( PROSE : " The Edge of Destruction " ) During the 1940s , at age 10 , while sick with whooping cough , Barbara read a Ladybird book about Captain Cook , sparking an interest in history . At age 12 , she was in Form 2A at Cricklewood Grammar School . In an exam , she wrote about life in Roman cities . Her answer did not impress her teacher , Mr . Dolphin , whose methods of teaching history Barbara considered very dull . At age 13 , she visited the Tower of London . ( PROSE : " Byzantium ! " ) In her teens , Barbara dated a boy who carried a flick knife . Her mother called this her " rebellious phase " . ( AUDIO : " 1963 " ) She later attended Hampstead High School for girls . In 1952 , she was in class 5G and answered a question about the Gunpowder Plot in her second History O - levels exam paper . ( PROSE : " The Plotters " ) She wrote her dissertation on the Aztec s . ( PROSE : " Nothing at the End of the Lane " ) At some point in the mid - 20th century , she lived in Bedfordshire . ( TV : " The Dalek Invasion of Earth " ) In 1954 , she was a student teacher in Cricklewood , living in a rented room . ( PROSE : " The Witch Hunters " ) In 1962 , Barbara visited Toledo , Spain . ( AUDIO : " The Flames of Cadiz " ) Prior to 1963 , she went on holiday to Somerset . ( TV : " The Reign of Terror " ) Barbara had an aunt named Cecilia . They met every year in London on 23 November , her aunt ' s birthday . ( AUDIO : " 1963 " ) She was a supporter of the Conservative Party whereas Ian supported the Liberal Party . She regarded his politics as " wrong but romantic . " ( PROSE : " Nothing at the End of the Lane " ) Travels with the Doctor . In 1963 , Barbara taught Susan Foreman history at Coal Hill School ( TV : " An Unearthly Child " ) in Shoreditch , London ( TV : " The Day of the Doctor " ) in classroom Class C4 . ( PROSE : " Nothing at the End of the Lane " ) She had a particular interest in the Aztec s . ( TV : " The Aztecs " ) The odd gaps in Susan ' s knowledge and her knowledge of things she could not know intrigued Barbara . Informing her colleague Ian Chesterton of the strange girl , together they followed Susan to 76 Totter ' s Lane , where they heard her voice from inside a police box . They forced their way inside , discovering the massive console room of the Doctor ' s TARDIS . Susan ' s grandfather , the First Doctor , kidnapped Ian and Barbara in the TARDIS , which travelled back in time . The TARDIS landed in Earth ' s Stone Age . The Doctor was taken by Kal , who had apparently seen him produce fire from his fingers ( the Doctor had been lighting his pipe using matches ) . The others tried to rescue the Doctor , but were taken to the Cave of Skulls . The Old Mother released the Doctor and his companion s because she did not want them to bring fire back to her tribe , and they escaped into a nearby forest . Ian and Barbara aided Za ' s injuries from an animal when he tried to chase after them , but were returned to the cave . Ian produced fire for the tribe and devised a way of scaring the cavemen by setting the skulls on fire . The group escaped to the TARDIS , which took off again . ( TV : " An Unearthly Child " ) When the TARDIS landed on Skaro , the Doctor lied about the fluid link needing more mercury , when there was nothing wrong , so he could explore a nearby city . The Dalek s imprisoned the Doctor and his companions inside the city , confiscating the fluid link they brought along . Having escaped , they assisted the Thal s in their attack on the Dalek city . The Daleks ' power supply was damaged in the attack . The Daleks died and their plans to flood the atmosphere with radiation failed . ( TV : " The Daleks " ) With the fluid link retrieved , the Doctor left Skaro for Earth , using the fast return switch . The spring in the switch was faulty , causing it to stick . The TARDIS was sent to the beginning of a solar system and everyone was knocked out in the trip . The TARDIS tried warning the crew about the atom s forming around them when they came to , but the Doctor assumed that this was Ian and Barbara ' s sabotage of the ship . Once Barbara figured out what was going on , the Doctor fixed the spring , ending the fault . ( TV : " The Rescue " , " The Edge of Destruction " ) Still heavily damaged and malfunctioning , the TARDIS found its way to Earth , but did not make it to Ian and Barbara ' s time , instead landing in the Plain of Pamir in 1289 . There , the Doctor and his companions met Marco Polo . Polo took the TARDIS along with its keys on his caravan across Cathay , to hand it to Kublai Khan as part of a bargain for his return to Venice . Along the way , the Mongol warlord , Tegana , also part of Polo ' s caravan , tried to take the TARDIS for Nogai as part of his plan to assassinate the Khan . In the chaos of Tegana and Polo ' s duel in Peking , the Doctor and his companions escaped in his repaired TARDIS . ( TV : " Marco Polo " ) The Doctor landed on an island on Marinus . Arbitan asked them to search for the keys to the reprogrammed Conscience of Marinus to regain control over the Voord , as all of his followers and family members had failed to retrieve them . Arbitan trapped the TARDIS in a forcefield , preventing the Doctor and his companions ' escape . They used Arbitan ' s travel dial s to reach Morphoton . Barbara released Arbitan ' s daughter , Sabetha and the rest of the city from the Morpho ' s mind control , and retrieved the first key . Ian and Barbara found a fake key in the Screaming Jungle and , after surviving several traps , were told the proper location of the second key by Darrius . The third key was found in a mountain cave and was guarded by Ice Soldier s . Escaping the soldiers , Ian reached Millennius , where he was knocked out and framed for the murder of Eprin . The Doctor helped discover the true culprit , and Ian was spared execution . The fourth key was found inside the mace that killed Eprin when the man sent to fetch the key was captured . The Doctor and his companions returned to Arbitan ' s island , where Arbitan had been murdered . Ian handed the Voord the fake key , which destroyed the Conscience , along with the Voord . They were able to leave in the TARDIS once more . ( TV : " The Keys of Marinus " ) The Doctor and his companions arrived in an Aztec temple in Mexico . They went through a one - way passage that prevented access to the TARDIS . Barbara posed as the Aztec god , Yetaxa , with the others as her servants , to find a way back . Barbara tried and failed to change the Aztecs ' history of human sacrifice for the better , which the Doctor strongly advised her against . Susan was to be punished for denying marriage to the Perfect Victim and Ian to be executed when he was framed by the High Priest of Sacrifice , Tlotoxl , for attacking the High Priest of Knowledge , Autloc . Autloc ' s faith in Yetaxa was shattered , and he left for the wilderness . The Doctor , Ian and the Doctor ' s accidental fiancée , Cameca , distracted Ian and Susan ' s guard to escape . Ian prevented Tlotoxl ' s murder of Barbara and fought off the warrior Ixta . They worked on a wheel and pulley system to open the doorway back to the TARDIS , taking the wheel with them to avoid contaminating history ( the Aztecs had never used wheels ) . As they departed , the sacrifice of the Perfect Victim continued as planned . ( TV : " The Aztecs " ) The Doctor landed inside a spaceship in the 28th century , where two crewmembers were suspended in a state resembling death and another , John , had had his mind opened and turned insane , following an attack on their minds by the Sensorite s . The Sense Sphere , which the ship had been trapped around , had its aqueducts ' water supply poison ed with atropine by survivors of a previous human expedition whose ship had been destroyed . The TARDIS ' lock was taken by the Sensorites , leaving the Doctor and his companions trapped on the spaceship . After the Doctor and his companions resisted the Sensorites , the Doctor , Ian and Susan agreed to go down to the Sense Sphere to treat the " disease " and cure John . Barbara had to stay behind as assurance for the Sensorites , but arrived on the Sense Sphere after the Doctor had discovered a cure for the poison . The Doctor and Ian , later followed by Barbara , went to the aqueducts where " Atropa belladonna " had been growing . They found the human expedition and pretended to be a welcoming party for them and that the " war " against the Sensorites was won . The expedition were taken into custody on Maitland ' s ship . Maitland ' s ship was free to leave and the TARDIS crew had regained their lock . ( TV : " The Sensorites " ) Passionate about history , Barbara could see both sides to a story . When the travellers arrived in revolutionary France , she befriended Léon Colbert . When he died , she was distraught and defended his treachery . ( TV : " The Reign of Terror " ) At some point during her travels with the Doctor , Susan and Ian , she visited Bob Dovie at 59A Barnsfield Crescent in Totton , Hampshire on 23 November 1963 . ( AUDIO : " The Light at the End " ) She liked watching plays when they were in Alexandria . When she discovered that Ian was talking to Hypathia she got angry . When the Library of Alexandria was burning down she tried to save the Books . ( AUDIO : " The Library of Alexandria " ) She was concerned for Ian when he was imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition . She later helped him escape from being burnt alive . ( AUDIO : " The Flames of Cadiz " ) They later landed in a flotila of ships on the planet Hydra where they were captured by Amyra Kaan and Pan Vexel for being stowaways . When Ian volunteered to help a rescue mission after a shipwreck , Barbara became concerned on what he would find in the wreckage of one of the ships . The Doctor ordered her to evacuate the sinking ship with Susan and the injured Jonas Kaan but she went back to get the Doctor . She was assumed to have died but was in fact imprisoned by Tarlak and maltreated for months . She also assumed the Doctor to have died . When Susan was to be converted into a Voord , Barbara was used as a bargaining chip to get Susan to comply with Tarlak ' s orders . ( AUDIO : " Domain of the Voord " ) On 22nd century Earth , the travellers found the Daleks had invaded and occupied the planet . Barbara helped a small resistance group in their plotting and , with Jenny , took Dortmun through London . With the Daleks defeated , Susan left their company to marry freedom fighter David Campbell . ( TV : " The Dalek Invasion of Earth " ) When they arrived on the planet Dido , Barbara was pushed off a cliff by Bennett , one of two surviving passengers of the crash landed Earth ship the " UK - 201 " as part of Bennett ' s plan to get away with his murder of the crew and many of the Dido people . The other surviving passenger , Vicki , brought Barbara to the " UK - 201 " after she survived her fall , but was upset when Barbara killed Vicki ' s pet sand beast , Sandy , thinking it to be dangerous . After Barbara offered an apology , the two got on well and , following Bennett ' s death and the revelation he murdered her father , Vicki joined the TARDIS to travel in time and space . ( TV : " The Rescue " ) The travellers stayed in a villa in Assisium near Rome for several weeks in the year 64 . Ian and Barbara were taken as slave s by the slave traders Sevcheria and Didius , with Barbara sold into Nero ' s palace to serve Nero ' s wife , the Empress Poppaea . While at the palace , Barbara received a bracelet from Nero as a present . After believing Barbara had ambitions to become Empress , Poppaea tried poisoning Barbara , but she was unwittingly saved by Vicki , who didn ' t know Barbara was in the palace . With the help of Ian , Tavius and Delos , Barbara escaped , and Ian and Barbara returned to the villa before the Doctor and Vicki returned from their own adventures in Rome . ( TV : " The Romans " ) The strength of character Barbara showed when accepting the fate of the Aztecs allowed her to persevere through the discomforts she faced on their travels . While on Vortis , Barbara survived working for the Zarbi , ( TV : " The Web Planet " ) and although she was captured by a Saracen band led by El Akir , she had the strength of mind to survive this as well . ( TV : " The Crusade " ) The Doctor , Ian , Barbara , and Vicki then travelled to 1868 , where they attended a lecture by Thomas Huxley . The four of them travelled into the London Underground to investigate a group of missing students and discovered that the Zarbi had populated themselves in the there . Travelling further into the sewers , they found the Animus , who had reformed itself and had moved to Earth to take revenge on the human race . Ian was able to kill it by driving a train into it . The Doctor and his companions prepared to leave , but the Doctor discovered that his companions were missing , having been pulled out of time by Adam Mitchell . ( COMIC : " Unnatural Selection " ) When Vicki told Barbara that the siesta machines that were being used on Hisk were like her teaching machines , Barbara got annoyed at the fact that her job was replaced by a machine . When she realised a local was severely depressed she helped to try and overcome the feeling by helping to bake some cakes . ( AUDIO : " The Sleeping City " ) On one place they landed on , she became a food preparation worker but took a leave day to reasearch the planet they were on . She was later arrested for unauthorised research . ( AUDIO : " The Unwinding World " ) When Barbara and her friends landed near Sonning Palace , the Doctor asked her to use her historical expertise to guess where they were . She was slightly disappointed at being in the reign of Henry IV . She spent her time making some clothing for the Doctor . She later went on a pilgrimage with the Doctor to Canterbury . ( AUDIO : " The Doctor ' s Tale " ) She was the first to realise that she and Ian might be able to return home in the Dalek time machine . Determined to get home , she was willing to risk her life in the Dalek ship . On returning home , Barbara and Ian were thrilled to have safely arrived . Once they had left the Dalek ship , and it had self - destructed , the two friends realised that they had some explaining to do , as they had arrived home in 1965 — two years after they had left . ( TV : " The Chase " ) Barbara and Ian claimed to have been missionaries in Africa to account for the time gap . ( PROSE : " Who Killed Kennedy " ) Life after the Doctor . In 1965 , Ian and Barbara were pulled into an illusionary world , and made to believe they were in Coal Hill . They encountered the Eleventh Doctor , who helped them overcome the illusion . Ian was sceptical when the strange young man proclaimed himself to be the Doctor , brushing off his intimate knowledge of their adventures as being a result of him being some sort of mind - reading alien . Barbara , on the other hand , was more willing to believe him , citing all the strange things the Doctor had done during their travels . They went with the Doctor to Cornucopia , where they discovered the place in ruins . When the attackers ( known as " the Hunters of the Burning Stone " ) attacked , the Doctor got their attention by claiming to possess the item they sought , allowing Ian to attack their leader from behind ( and finally convincing him that he really was the same man he once knew ) . Barbara was then kidnapped by Miss Ghost , and transported to her ship . There , Barbara learned that Miss Ghost was actually Annabel Lake , an acquaintance of the Doctor ' s from 20th century Prague . Using Annabel ' s ship , they flew to the Prometheans ' ship , narrowly escaping the Hunters ( who were revealed to be the Tribe of Gum ) and saved the Doctor , Ian and Annabel ' s father , Patrick Lake . Unfortunately , they could not prevent the Prometheans from using their " Neural Extractor " to regress humanity to a neanderthal mindset . On Annabel ' s ship , Ian and Barbara encouraged the Doctor to think of a plan , and he finally hit upon one , taking the TARDIS to the past . As the Tribe of Gum instructed the primitive humans to worship the Prometheans , the Doctor returned , having planted the image of the TARDIS throughout human history , and using that image to alter the neural platform , reversing the effect , destroying the platform , and " locking " the minds of the human race from being altered again . Incensed , the Tribe of Gum , at the Prometheans ' urging , attacked the Doctor . Barbara and Ian landed their ship on a fragment of the neural platform , and convinced the Tribe to stop by telling them of love and sacrifice , and how the Doctor protected the people of Earth for years . When the Tribe of Gum ceased their assault , the Prometheans attacked Barbara and Ian . The Tribe of Gum then turned on the Prometheans . Both sides were destroyed in the ensuing struggle . Barbara and Ian returned to their own time , and married , with the Doctor attending their wedding . ( COMIC : " Hunters of the Burning Stone " ) At some point , Barbara was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have her record as a companion of the Doctor taken . Her memories of the visit were subsequently erased and she was sent on her way . ( TV : " The Day of the Doctor " ) The Fifth Doctor was aware Barbara became a housewife , and made excellent upside - down cake . ( PROSE : " Goth Opera " ) She began a career as a university lecturer , specialising in Aztec history . ( PROSE : " Who Killed Kennedy " ) Her and Ian had a child , John Alydon Ganatus Chesterton , who grew up to be a famous musician under the name Johnny Chess . ( PROSE : " " , " Byzantium ! " ) The Seventh Doctor ' s companion Ace was a fan of Johnny Chess . ( AUDIO : " Maker of Dreams " ) Barbara kept a diary which she planned to leave for Susan when the Doctor ' s granddaughter came to live on 22nd century Earth . ( PROSE : " The Face of the Enemy " ) According to a rumour Sarah Jane Smith shared with Clyde Langer and Rani Chandra , Barbara and Ian had become professors at the University of Cambridge by at least the 2010s and had not aged since the 1960s . ( TV : " Death of the Doctor " ) In November 1973 , Barbara took her son John to the Roman exhibit in the British Museum . ( PROSE : " Byzantium ! " ) In 1985 , Barbara wrote a GCSE textbook called " " with Ian Martin in which Lady Jane Grey ' s nine day reign from 10 to 19 July 1553 was covered . She , the Doctor and Ian had met Lady Jane shortly after she was deposed by Queen Mary I . ( PROSE : " The Nine - Day Queen " ) Legacy . The main building at Coal Hill Academy was named after Barbara . It was completed in Spring 2016 . ( TV : " The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo " ) An oak tree was planted at the Coal Hill quad in memory of Ian and Barbara . Surviving two Dalek invasions , it remained to at least the end of the 22nd century when it was found by Susan , who lived in the block of flats which Coal Hill had been converted to over a hundred years prior . Realising that the commemorative plaque had since been replaced more than once , Susan found it did not say when they ultimately died . ( AUDIO : " All Hands on Deck " ) Personality . Barbara was keen to see the good in all things . She was frequently protected by Ian . ( TV : " The Keys of Marinus " ) She believed in the innate goodness of people and saw that sometimes there was more to a situation than met the eye . ( TV : " The Romans " ) Barbara was also capable of great endurance and feats of bravery . She killed Sandy with a flare gun in shock , after which she was keen to make it up with Vicki . ( TV : " The Rescue " ) While a prisoner , Barbara looked after her fellow captives at risk to herself . ( TV : " The Romans " ) Barbara would take her aggression out on the Dalek s . Despite her initial fear , she overcame it and fought them to save her group and the Thal s . ( TV : " The Daleks " ) In her second encounter with them , Barbara drove a truck through a roadblock of Daleks , crushing at least one of them . ( TV : " The Dalek Invasion of Earth " ) The next time she met the Daleks , Barbara was eager to violently attack them as soon as the Doctor gained the weaponry they needed . ( TV : " The Chase " ) Susan once described Barbara as " brave and kind " . ( AUDIO : " Domain of the Voord " ) Barbara was extremely fond of Geoffrey Chaucer ' s " The Canterbury Tales " . ( AUDIO : " The Doctor ' s Tale " ) She was a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and participated in the Aldermaston marches . It was on the marches that she and Ian first became friends . ( AUDIO : " The Doctor ' s Tale " )