Paternoster Gang The Paternoster Gang was a group of detectives active in Victorian London named after Paternoster Row , the street on which their " de facto " headquarters were located . ( TV : " The Great Detective " ) The group was comprised of Madame Vastra — owner of the Paternoster house — Jenny Flint and Strax . History . Origin . Vastra , along with fellow Silurian s , had awoken during the construction of part of the London Underground and had wanted to take revenge on innocent tunnel workers for the deaths of her " sisters " . After Vastra had slaughtered at least five commuters , the Doctor convinced her not to give in to rage . At some point , she hired Jenny Flint as her maid . Vastra ' s relationship with Jenny eventually became romantic . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " , " The Snowmen " ) Vastra and Jenny were part of the Doctor ' s army which he summoned from across time and space to aid him in the Battle of Demon ' s Run . Also among the Doctor ' s allies was Commander Strax , a Sontaran nurse who , like Vastra , owed the Doctor a debt . He was killed in the battle with the Headless Monks . After the battle , the Doctor departed in his TARDIS , leaving River Song to take Vastra and Jenny home . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) However , two days after the battle , Vastra and Jenny returned to the Demons Run asteroid to retrieve Strax . They woke Strax up , informing him that he had not died since they had used alien technology to heal his wounds . Jenny said that he had never truly passed away thanks to the resurrection technology and he had been in a state of unconsciousness for two days while the resurrection device healed him . Strax was angry that his glorious death in battle was robbed from him . Vastra and Jenny announced that the station was being evacuated , and offered to take Strax with them back to London . Strax was hesitant and at first rudely refused but then changed his mind and agreed to accompany them . Joining them in Victorian London in 1888 , Strax became Vastra ' s butler . The Paternoster Gang was formed soon after . ( WC : " " , TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) Christmas 1892 . Soon after the Eleventh Doctor ' s arrival at Victorian London to retire after losing his most beloved friends , the Paternoster Gang became known as " the Doctor ' s friends " , and tried to convince the Doctor to return to his universe - saving career . Soon after , on 24 December 1892 the three , along with the Doctor and Clara Oswin Oswald , defeated the Great Intelligence and stopped his plan to take over the Earth using telepathic snow . During this adventure , Clara died , but the Doctor , who seemed to know her before , returned to normal . ( TV : " The Snowmen " ) Sweetville . In 1893 , a man called Mr Thursday contacted Vastra to ask her to investigate the murder of his brother , Edmund . Vastra , with Jenny and Strax , investigated Edmund ' s dead body , and found out a strange optogram in his eye — an image of the Doctor . Jenny was sent to Sweetville to see what ' s wrong , only to find the Doctor fossil in an odd red liquid . The Doctor instructed Jenny how to heal him , and once it was done , the pair went out to find Clara . They found her as a puppet inside a glass dome . The group was confused at seeing Clara , now the Doctor ' s companion , alive after seeing her die the previous Christmas . After Clara was recovered , the Doctor , Jenny and Clara were caught by Winifred Gillyflower , the project ' s manager . They were soon saved by Vastra and Strax . Then the Paternoster Gang , along with the Doctor and Clara , stopped Gillyflower ' s plan to launch a rocket containing a red leech poison , wiping out humanity over the Earth . Eventually , Strax shot Gillyflower , who fell to the floor and died . ( TV : " The Crimson Horror " ) Trenzalore . Vastra was called to talk to a serial killer , Clarence DeMarco , that killed fourteen women . ( HOMEVID : " Clarence and the Whispermen " ) He told her about the Doctor ' s biggest secret , and gave her a space - time coordinates to him , in exchange for his freedom . Vastra agreed , and arranged a psychic conference call with Jenny , Strax , Clara and River Song . There , she told them what Clarence told her , but the call was soon disturbed by the Whisper Men who attacked the sleeping investigators . Jenny was murdered by them , but Vastra and Strax managed to wake up in time . Clara also woke up , and after telling the Doctor what was happening , the two travelled to coordinates Clara remembered . The coordinates were , apparently , Trenzalore . Vastra and Strax were also brought to Trenzalore by the Whisper Men . There , the Great Intelligence , who controlled the Whisper Men , opened the Doctor ' s tomb . He jumped into the Doctor ' s time stream , and began to alter his history . Because of the Great Intelligence ' s actions , Vastra and Strax no longer knew each other . Strax attacked Vastra , and she shot and killed him . Clara reversed the recent occurrences , including Jenny ' s and Strax ' s death , by entering the timeline after the Intelligence , saving the Doctor wherever he went . The Doctor then decided to save Clara by entering his timeline himself , telling the Paternoster Gang that the TARDIS could return them home with the fast return protocol if he didn ' t return . ( TV : " The Name of the Doctor " ) With the Twelfth Doctor . Having been returned to their home period , at some point they witnessed a dinosaur arrive in Thames from an earlier time . After his TARDIS was regurgitated by a dinosaur , the newly - regenerated Doctor and Clara met with the Paternoster Gang . Dealing with his new body , he was confused between Strax and Clara and later thought that she was a regeneration of Handles . After the dinosaur was set on fire and burned to death , they helped the Doctor deal with his new personality and uncover the plot of the Half - Face Man . ( TV : " Deep Breath " ) When the Doctor visited London again with Clara , the Paternoster Gang again helped him with a new threat . They separately investigated the Carnival of Curiosities and individuals linked to Orestes Milton . They collectively learnt that Milton had enslaved two acts in the Carnival , Silhouette and Affinity and used them as weapons to escape capture from the Shadow Proclamation for war crimes . Posing as an industrialist , Milton attempted to channel anger onto the local population to turn them against each other . However , he was thwarted and promptly executed by the Proclamation . ( PROSE : " Silhouette " ) Further investigations . In 1893 , Strax visited Yorkshire and foiled an attempted invasion of Earth by the Azohian s . ( PROSE : " The House of Sorrows " ) In 1893 , the Paternoster Gang attempted to capture a thief at the Monte Carlo Casino only to witness him creating a temporal portal . They followed the thief through the portal and found themselves at the court of Henry VIII in 1544 . The gang learned that the thief , Lord Volta , was planning on altering history by providing Henry VIII with technology from the future . Strax grabbed Volta and used Volta ' s time travel technology to create a portal back to 1893 . The Paternoster Gang handed over the unconscious Volta to the police of 1893 ( PROSE : " The Tudor Engagement " ) In 1893 , the gang tracked down technology stolen from several universities to a warehouse by the Thames . They discovered that the technology had been stolen by Vex , a 25th century carrier droid who was using the technology to create a machine that would send his prisoners back to the future . The gang helped Vex use the machine and then allowed the police to arrest Vew as a petty thief . ( PROSE : " The Case of the Curious Fugitive " ) In February 1894 , William Christie brought the Paternoster Gang to the Royal Observatory to find the source of several peculiarities . Vastra deduced that Gremlin s were the cause of Christie ' s troubles . Jenny negotiated with the Gremlins and had them relocate from the observatory to the River Thames . ( PROSE : " The Curious Case of the Miniature Menaces " ) In spring 1894 , the Paternoster Gang investigated a series of disappearances on the Isle of Skye . Using a boat rented from Waternish , they travelled to the Minch Strait and discovered a group of alien scientists . The aliens helped the gang stop a group of smuggler s who were responsible for the disappearances . ( PROSE : " The Singular Case of the Blue Men of Minch " ) In June 1894 , Strax and Jenny went undercover as performers at the Palace of Wonder after Faye Garrideb asked them to investigate several supposed sightings of ghost s at venue . They found out that the ghost was actually an alien prince from Calamiño whose spaceship was underneath the Palace of Wonder . Vastra decided to let the prince destroy the Palace of Wonder so that he could leave Earth in his ship . ( PROSE : " The Phantom of the Music Hall " ) In September 1894 , the Prime Minister came to Paternoster Row to request that the gang protect Thaddeus Maine , a scientist who created a working time machine . At the Royal Academy of Science , they stopped two foreign assassins from killing Maine and stealing the time machine . Distressed by the number of people wanting to use the time machine for military purposes , Maine piloted the machine to a safer time . ( PROSE : " The Singular Case of the Time Machine " ) Later in autumn 1894 , the Paternoster Gang were called to the British Museum by Jolyon Tanner to inspect the recently acquired Book of the Dead . Vastra determined that the pages of the book were made of a psychic papyrus made its readers depressed . While Jenny and Strax both fell prey to the book ' s effects , Vastra was able to resist it . The psychic papyrus strained to depress Vastra and disintegrated after overloading itself . ( PROSE : " The Curious Case of the Misery Diary " ) On 15 November 1894 , Strax ' s fighting drone malfunctioned and began attacking residents of Paternoster Row . The gang kept the drone distracted until it ran out of power . ( PROSE : " The Spectre of Paternoster Row " ) In late 1894 , Vastra and Strax went undercover as freaks at " Holmes ' Travelling Carnival and Freakshow " in order to find the source of high levels of artron energy which had been detected in the area . They discovered that Harrison Crane , one of the other freakshow performers , had been using a damaged vortex manipulator as part of his act and put a stop to it . ( PROSE : " The Case of the Dissolving Man " ) On 14 February 1895 , Oscar Wilde gave the Paternoster Gang tickets to the premiere of " The Importance of Being Earnest " at St James ' s Theatre . During the performance , a being from Proscenia possessed Rose Leclerq and used a device to make all the humans in the audience uncontrollably laugh in order to signal an invasion fleet . Strax punched Leclerq , knocking her unconscious and breaking the Proscenian ' s control over the audience . Strax then took Leclerq ' s place as Lady Bracknell . ( PROSE : " The Importance of Being Strax " ) The Paternoster Gang encountered an alien prankster who was using a molecular disruptor to transform parts of London into silly things . Vastra convinced the prankster that getting rid of London ' s smog and cleaning the River Thames would be a prank . Upon seeing the people of London laughing in joy , the prankster assumed that he had performed the ultimate joke and he left Earth . ( PROSE : " The Confounding Case of the Planetary Prankster " ) In early 1896 , the Paternoster Gang attended a demonstration of Auguste and Pierre Lumière ' s moving picture technology . The projector used in the demonstration was augmented with holographic technology added by PR - 40 . The gang found PR - 40 and took him to Paternoster Row . ( PROSE : " The Inscrutable Illusionist " ) In 1897 , the gang dived into the River Thames and located an Esturian spaceship . Strax trapped the Esturians in a canister . The twelve orphans who had been turned into mermaid s by the Esturians were given to P . T . Barnum . ( PROSE : " The Terror of the Thames " ) In summer 1897 , shortly after the Paternoster Gang visited Paris , Hilary Bantlewhite hired them to guard the Giant ' s Heart at the Tower of London . The Doctor came to the Tower to dispose of the Heart because it was actually a dangerous alien parasite which absorbed light . The gang helped bring the Heart into the Doctor ' s TARDIS and replaced it with a diamond from Horno Ciego . ( PROSE : " The Giant ' s Heart " ) Behind the scenes . Steven Moffat derived the name Paternoster Gang from " The Brilliant Book 2012 " where Clayton Hickman referred to their base as Paternoster Row . ( DWM 480 )