Evelyn Smythe Dr Evelyn Smythe ( later Rossiter ; b . 1945 ) was an accomplished academic , rather closer to the end of her long career than the beginning . As a professor of history , she was very interested in the TARDIS ' time travel capabilities . Like Barbara Wright before her , she occasionally found theories to which she had devoted much of her career proven wrong by examining events first - hand . Her history with the Doctor was complicated . She was the Sixth Doctor ' s active companion and made several visits long after she had departed . Biography . As a child , she was called " Evey " by her family . She had a sister named Mary who was her mother ' s favourite . Her parents and Mary had all died by 2000 . ( AUDIO : " Arrangements for War " ) When Evelyn met the Sixth Doctor in 2000 , she was a history lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University with a particular interest in Tudor politics . Most of her working life had been focused almost totally on academic research , so much so her marriage had broken down after a row with her husband about her attending an academic conference on their wedding anniversary . Part of her work included extensive investigation of her family tree and the life of one of her ancestors , John Whiteside - Smith , an adviser at the court of Elizabeth I . It was the sudden disappearance of her family from history — including her Elizabethan relative — that led the Doctor to identify her as a temporal nexus point who threatened the time stream . He appeared in Sheffield in 2000 and took her to January 1555 to try to save her life by correcting the interference . This turned out to be a paradoxical result of her own actions in encouraging an attempt on the life of Elizabeth ' s half - sister and predecessor , Mary I . With this averted , she insisted on joining the Doctor on his travels ; she would not pass up the opportunity to travel through time and explore history firsthand . ( AUDIO : " The Marian Conspiracy " ) With the Doctor , she met Brigadier Lethbridge - Stewart , Charles Darwin and the Silurian s . ( AUDIO : " The Spectre of Lanyon Moor " , " Bloodtide " ) She was present during the Dalek invasion of Gallifrey , where she had her eye print scanned into the Eye of Harmony . ( AUDIO : " The Apocalypse Element " ) In London in 2001 , she befriended Cassie , a young waitress turned into a vampire by Nimrod . She and the Doctor set out to find a cure . ( AUDIO : " Project : Twilight " ) By the time they returned in November 2004 , Cassie had been brainwashed by the Forge . It was only through Evelyn ' s persuasion that she was returned to her original personality . Before Cassie could escape in the TARDIS with the Doctor and Evelyn , Nimrod killed her . This devastated Evelyn . ( AUDIO : " Project : Lazarus " ) Cassie ' s death and the Doctor ' s inability to save her strained Evelyn ' s relationship with him . She needed some time away . During this time , on the planet Világ , Evelyn grew close to a man named Justice Rossiter , but felt that she could not leave the Doctor for him . ( AUDIO : " Arrangements for War " ) They travelled to Fortune after landing on a train . Here she met a young women , Rachel - Ann Donovan , who wanted to find her father ' s killer . She was forced to jump the train to avoid being captured as an accomplice to murder . She met Sam when she entered town to find out where the Doctor had been taken . When the Doctor was rescued she used her research skills to scour the local newspapers to find information about the murderer . She was trapped in the newspaper building when it was set alight but was rescued before being kidnapped and placed in the mine which was rigged to explode . After the mayor was arrested for the attempted murder of Evelyn and the Doctor she realised that it was Sam who killed Rachel - Ann ' s father by accident . ( AUDIO : " A Town Called Fortune " ) Evelyn was suffering from a heart condition when she met the Doctor , something which she never told him lest he refuse to let her travel with him . ( AUDIO : " Project : Lazarus " ) At some point during her travels with the Doctor , they visited the court of Elizabeth I . ( AUDIO : " Thicker Than Water " ) Another time , Evelyn and the Doctor travelled to Mortlake in 1568 and met Dr John Dee . Evelyn learned that at some point in the future she would write the book " " when the Doctor asked her to sign his copy , but he refused to allow her to read it . ( PROSE : " Mortlake " ) On a return trip to Világ , Evelyn left the Doctor to marry Rossiter . The Doctor reacted badly and refused to say goodbye properly . She had hoped the Doctor would attend her wedding and give her away , but he never turned up . She had surgery to cure her heart condition , but the surgery used Killoran blood to disguise the problem . This caused headaches and a short temper . Two years later , the Doctor arrived with his companion Melanie Bush to visit Evelyn , who was having problems with her stepdaughter Sofia Rossiter ' s ideologies . Evelyn and Mel were kidnapped to become political prisoners . The activists , who had injected Evelyn with Killoran DNA , knew Sofia , but she was not involved with their plot . The Doctor and Sofia worked to save Evelyn ' s life and although her heart condition was not cured , Evelyn was happy . She and the Doctor made their peace at the renewing of Evelyn and Rossiter ' s vows . While Evelyn was being treated for the damage done by the Killoran DNA , the Seventh Doctor secretly visited her to tell her that Thomas Hector " Hex " Schofield , Cassie ' s son , had joined him as a travelling companion . ( AUDIO : " Thicker Than Water " ) Ten years after Rossiter ' s death , Evelyn was accidentally transported to the planet Pelachan billions of years in the past by a temporal stabiliser which she had discovered in an archaeological dig . Further investigation revealed the stabiliser was from a timeship called the " Pelican " . It had crashed on the planet Pelachan in the distant past ( hence the similar names ) . Evelyn lived on Pelachan for two years before suffering a fatal heart attack . It was during this time that she met Hex , who had been sent to Pelachan by the Doctor . The Seventh Doctor arrived just before her death . He asked her to help him defeat the Word Lord Nobody No - One in a complex plan involving trapping him in the Hand of All , a pocket universe composed entirely of words , sustained only by Evelyn ' s " narration " . When Evelyn died , Nobody No - One died with her . The Doctor delivered the eulogy at her funeral . ( AUDIO : " A Death in the Family " ) An alternative view . According to another account , Evelyn may not have ended her initial travels with the Sixth Doctor on Világ , but on Earth . In this timeline , she was returned to Earth a decade before she left , forcing her to live her life in isolation from her relations , her career and her home . She feared she would run into her younger self and suffer the cruel end afforded by the Blinovitch Limitation Effect . She was rescued from this paradox by the Sixth Doctor and Mel , whom she had never previously met . Upon the conclusion of an adventure with the pair , she asked to be taken home via the Eye of Orion . ( PROSE : " Instruments of Darkness " ) Legacy . The Twelfth Doctor saw Evelyn , among other companions , when Bernice Summerfield was hit by temporal energy in the Pyramid Eternia . ( PROSE : " Big Bang Generation " )