Time cabinet The time cabinet was an early experimental time machine from the 51st century which used zygma beams . Origins . The time cabinet was developed by the Supreme Alliance . It was an unsuccessful device , as it had been based on Sa Yy Findecker ' s discovery of the double nexus particle , which , according to the Fourth Doctor , would lead mankind into a scientific cul - de - sac . It used the principle of a zygma beam , which if overstretched could cause a huge and catastrophic implosion . Its use could lead to severe and life - threatening mutation s . It could be locked by fused molecules , and thereafter only opened by a " time key " in the form of its trionic lattice , a unique element which was central to its operation . ( TV : " The Talons of Weng - Chiang " ) Another Supreme Alliance war criminal would , however , discover means to reverse the degenerative process . ( COMIC : " The Time Machination " ) Use of the time cabinet . Magnus Greel , the one - time Minister of Justice of the Supreme Alliance , used the experimental device when he was fleeing persecution — or prosecution — as a war criminal . This made him , as far as he knew , the first human to travel through time ( AUDIO : " The Butcher of Brisbane " ) . Greel arrived in 19th century China . He had to hide from Imperial soldiers for a long while , and his time cabinet was taken . George Litefoot ' s family received the cabinet as a parting gift from Emperor Tongzhi when they left China in 1873 , which they thought it was a puzzle box . Litefoot was never able to open it . Greel searched for the cabinet for many years . His search led him to London , where Litefoot had settled after leaving China . Greel recovered the cabinet in 1889 . He committed several murder s mostly to harvest the life force of innocents to keep himself together , though this actually accelerated the process of cellular degeneration which had begun when he first used the cabinet . He was killed by this degeneration when the cabinet could no longer function correctly . The Fourth Doctor destroyed the time key , rendering the time cabinet useless . ( TV : " The Talons of Weng - Chiang " ) Unknown to Greel , his time cabinet had nearly materialised in 1937 when Hsien - Ko attempted to generate a massive amount of Piezoelectricity to disrupt the zygma beam , but the Doctor and Romana were able to force the cabinet back on its original path by materialising the TARDIS where the cabinet was trying to materialise ( PROSE : " The Shadow of Weng - Chiang " ) . Jago and Litefoot once again discovered the time cabinet in 1968 . ( AUDIO : " The Bloodchild Codex " ) When Greel ' s mind was later reconsituted by Guinevere Godiva in 1968 by using a Venusian crystal , he took possession of Detective Inspector Dave Sacker to continue living . When Greel was killed by Jago and Litefoot , Jago and Litefoot used the preprogrammed time cabinet to travel from 1968 to 1893 again . ( AUDIO : " The Final Act " ) Behind the scenes . Dialogue in " The Talons of Weng - Chiang " indicates that the soldiers taking the cabinet served Emperor Tongzhi , whose reign began in 1861 . This could be deduce d as an earliest possible arrival date for Greel .