Thomas Huxley

Thomas Huxley was a biologist and educator in the England of 19th century. He defended the ideas of Charles Darwin; the First Doctor referred to him as "Darwin's Bulldog".

Being a good friend of his, the First Doctor attended one of his speeches at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1868, bringing with him Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki Pallister. Later, Huxley, while searching for his lost students, helped the team fight a colony of Zarbi controlled by the Animus in the underground of the city, where his students had been placed under the Animus' control. The Doctor and Huxley distracted the Animus, while Ian drove a train into the Animus' carsinome, killing it. The Doctor warned Huxley that mankind, having been proved difficult enough to be convinced of natural selection at that point, were not yet "evolved enough" to be persuaded that "unnatural" aliens like the Zarbi existed. (COMIC: Unnatural Selection)

While visiting Logopolis, the Fourth Doctor misquoted his "old friend Huxley", initially saying, "The cheeseboard is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe", but corrected himself on the erroneously substitution of "chessboard". (TV: Logopolis)

Behind the scenes
He was the grandfather of Aldous Huxley.