Torchwood Institute


 * For the television show, see Torchwood

"Her Majesty created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great and fighting the alien horde."

- Yvonne Hartman.

The Torchwood Institute was founded in or about the year 1879 by royal decree from Queen Victoria, in response to an encounter with the Doctor and a cult of monks who were harboring a werewolf.

Overview
"The Torchwood Institute has a motto. ‘If it’s alien, it’s ours’. Anything that comes from the sky, we strip it down and we use it, for the good of the British Empire."

- Yvonne Hartman.

While Her Majesty was grateful for the Doctor and Rose's assistance in defeating the werewolf, the incident also made her aware of otherworldly threats to the British Empire, and thus ordered that Torchwood be established in order to defend against them -- specifically from the Doctor. Seeing his power and knowledge, the Queen was wary of any possible threat he could cause to the Empire. The name of the Institute was drawn from the Torchwood Estate, where most of the adventure took place. (DW: Tooth and Claw)

Over time, the Institute accumulated much alien technology, reverse-engineering it and applying it to secret military projects within the British army. Within Torchwood an unofficial slogan evolved: "If it's alien, it's ours."

Hiding out in the open, what most of the British populace believed was a tower of banking offices was in fact Torchwood Tower, built to more readily access a weak point in spacetime. The Torchwood Tower was itself only part of a much larger plan involving free energy that backfired horribly, and resulted in the deaths of millions. According to the Torchwood website, this cell of the Institute was abandoned after the events of this story. (DW: Army of Ghosts)

Torchwood operates in cells, London being Torchwood 1, and Cardiff being the home to Torchwood 3, the maverick organisation led by Capt. Jack Harkness. At least two other Torchwood cells are known: Torchwood 2, based in Glasgow, Scotland, and a Torchwood 4, the nature of which is unknown except that it is "lost" (TW: Everything Changes).

The organisation considers itself above both Government and Police, existing under a Royal Charter. However, Torchwood does not operate autonomously and often refers to the British Cabinet and to UNIT in both an advisory and operational capacity. (TW: Everything Changes) On at least one occasion an active member of UNIT (Martha Jones) was even assigned to work with Torchwood 3 for a time.

The amount of knowledge the general public have regarding Torchwood seems to vary depending upon the situation. By the 1950s, at least, it was known by police authorities (DW: The Idiot's Lantern); by the late 2000s, the name at least was known by the general public (TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang), to the extent where it could be cited with some authoritiy in much the same way terms like FBI or Homeland Security (or UNIT) could also be cited (TW: Dead Man Walking). By the early 2010s, Torchwood was known enough to have the Battle of Canary Wharf become known as the Battle of Torchwood (DW: Fear Her). Hundreds of thousands of years later, the Torchwood Institute had become the stuff of trivia questions (DW: Bad Wolf).

19th century
Torchwood was started when Rose Tyler and The Doctor when they traveled with Queen Victoria to Torchwood House in Scotland. At the house a monastic group called the brethren stored a Werewolf in the house and locked up everybody. The Werewolf was killed by the doctor but Queen Victoria started the Torchwood Institute to protect the people of the British empire. (DW: Tooth and Claw).

After discovering a spacetime Rift in Cardiff, Queen Victoria founded a third branch of Torchwood (after the first and second in London and Scotland), Torchwood 3 (torchwood.org.uk). In 1899 Cardiff Jack Harkness was recruited by two of this branch's operatives, Alice Guppy and Emily Holroyd to become a freelance agent for the Institute. In his first mission he was instructed to shoot a blowfish alien and did so, much to his displeasure, and worked for Torchwood largely against his will.(TW: Fragments)

20th century
In 1901 Alice Guppy and Charles Gaskell dug up Jack Harkness as he had been taken from the 21st Century and buried in Cardiff. He told them to freeze him in the cryo-chambers so he could defeat his brother Gray.

In 1918, Torchwood 3 investigated ghost sightings in a hospital in Cardiff. As present and future blended, they caught glimpses of 2009. At this time they had a team of 5, the leader being a man called Gerald Carter and, based on a photo, were very possibly already based out of the Hub. They already had equipment capable of detecting disturbances in Time. (TW: To the Last Man)

Circa 1919, Harriet Derbyshire, one of the investigators of the hospital sightings and in only her mid-20's, died in action. (TW: To the Last Man)

In 1923 Torchwood found evidence that an alien race called the Pyroviles invaded Earth at Pompeii in 79 AD This is because of a human professor called Livesy-Smythe(Captain Jack's Monster Files)

By 1953 the London branch was influential enough that London Police feared its involvement when investigating the strange occurrences provoked by the activities of an alien entity known as The Wire (DW: The Idiot's Lantern)

Torchwood's activities during the 1960s-90s period remain unclear, as most historical records involving alien contact -- and the Doctor -- relate to the activities of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. The creation of UNIT in response to an event on the London Underground (DW: The Web of Fear) suggests UNIT may have been created by entities unaware of Torchwood's existence. Torchwood, similarly, appeared to have no direct involvement in the subsequent Cybermen invasion attempt in London (DW: The Invasion).

Circa 1996, Torchwood recovered a Jathaa sunglider and reverse-engineered weaponry from it. (DW: Army of Ghosts)

21st century
On Christmas, circa 2006, the alien Sycorax attempted an invasion of Earth by blood control and a ship built out of an asteroid which hovered over London. (DW: The Christmas Invasion) Torchwood was preparing a weapon for just such a contingency, based on alien technology that they had scavenged from a Jathaa sun glider. At the same time, in Torchwood Tower, the Institute examined the Void Ship (though they did not call it by that name), to them an obviously alien artifact which they struggled to understand. Meanwhile, it was discovered that tapping into the resonance around it could provide massive amounts of what they believed was free energy. A side-effect of these experiments was the appearance of millions of "ghosts" all over the world; humanoid figures that seemed to glow with an unearthly light. (DW: Army of Ghosts)

It was at this point that the Doctor became involved, and explained to the then-administrator Yvonne Hartman that their experiments were in fact weakening the barrier between dimensions, which would eventually lead to dramatic problems in their own world, perhaps even resulting in the collapse of their dimension altogether. His warnings were not heeded, and the experiments continued. As a result, a massive invasion force from another dimension came through the 'hole', allowing the Earth to be conquered by the Cybermen for approximately an hour.

At the same time, the Void Ship opened, revealing a hidden cadre of Daleks. Four Daleks, members of the secret Cult of Skaro, had come to Earth to help restore the Dalek race using a stolen piece of Time Lord technology called the Genesis Ark. They promptly killed a Torchwood technician while stealing his knowledge of current events, and seeing the Cybermen as an impediment to their own return, they began a war against them, despite an offer from the Cyber-Leader to form an alliance.

The 'hole' in space time created by the Void Ship also allowed a resistance army from another dimension to cross over, initially with the intention of stopping the Cybermen. However with the advance of the Daleks, a rather sudden and uneasy truce began, with Torchwood militia men, the Preachers, and the Cybermen all fighting together against the Daleks. This turned the Torchwood Tower into a battleground, and the fighting did not stop until The Doctor found a way to intervene, reversing Torchwood's power machinery and sending the Daleks and Cybermen into the Void. (DW: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday)

With the vast majority of the Torchwood administration stationed in London and thus killed or 'upgraded' by the Cybermen, the organization was severely weakened. Jack Harkness stepped in and tried to reform the Cardiff branch into a more humane organization. (TW: Everything Changes,DW: The Sound of Drums) Meanwhile, Rose Tyler was recruited by the version of Torchwood that existed on the parallel Earth nicknamed Pete's World.

In 2008 a major event occurred with the opening of the Cardiff rift, resulting in massive temporal displacements and the release of the demon Abaddon. (TW: End of Days) Shortly thereafter team leader Captain Jack Harkness mysteriously disappeared. (DW: Utopia) Subsequently, The Master under the guise of Harold Saxon the crew of Torchwood three was sent on a wild goose chase in the Himalayas in order to look for him. Actually, the Master just wanted them out of the way. (DW: The Sound of Drums)

After a few months had passed for Torchwood 3 (and about a year for Jack, who had lived through the Year That Never Was), Jack returned to Torchwood 3. In the meantime, Gwen Cooper had taken charge. (TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang) Jack resumed command. Some months later, the Torchwood 3 team was depleted by the deaths of two members (TW: Exit Wounds) and later became involved in assisting the Doctor restore the Earth to its original location after it was forceably moved by the Daleks to the Medusa Cascade (DW: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. Meanwhile, Rose Tyler, presumably using her Torchwood's resources (though this is unconfirmed) returned to her home Earth on several occasions, including once to an alternate timeline (DW: Turn Left) before rejoining the Doctor and fighting the Daleks once more.

Perhaps due to their frequent influence during alien invasion, by the late 2000s, Torchwood was beginning to be known by the public at large (TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang). By 2012, Torchwood was widely known by the public, to the extent that the Battle of Canary Wharf had come to be known as the "Battle of Torchwood". (DW: Fear Her)

Later events
The Great Cobalt Pyramid was built on the ruins of Torchwood. (DW: Bad Wolf) A Contestant called Strood that was in a future Big Brother series on board Satellite 5. His Profile said that he lived at Torchwood (BBC Doctor Who Website)


 * It is unknown what the relation is between Torchwood and the Torchwood Archives from the year 43K2.1 

Unknown date
By the early 21st century, when Gwen Cooper joined, Torchwood 4 disappeared. (TW: Everything Changes)

Administrators and Staff
Yvonne Hartman was the administrator of Torchwood during the Cybermen incursion and the Dalek conflict. (DW: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday) Ianto Jones was a key member in the administration of Torchwood's London facility. (TW: Cyberwoman) Adeola Oshodi, cousin to the Doctor's companion Martha Jones, also worked at Torchwood 1 prior to her death. (DW: Army of Ghosts, Smith and Jones)

Torchwood 1 - (Closed)

 * Yvonne Hartman (Director of the Torchwood Institute, deceased circa 2007)
 * Doctor Rajesh Singh (deceased circa 2007)
 * Adeola Oshodi (deceased circa 2007)
 * Vivien Rook (deceased circa 2008)
 * Matt Crane (deceased circa 2007)
 * Gareth Evans (deceased circa 2007)
 * Lisa Hallett (underwent partial cyber-conversion in 2007, later deceased)
 * Andrew (deceased circa 2007)
 * Ianto Jones (employed at Torchwood 3 following the Battle of Canary Wharf)
 * Rupert Howarth

Torchwood 3

 * Philip Lyle (active circa 1897)
 * Alice Guppy (circa 1897-1901)
 * Emily Holroyd (circa 1897)
 * Charles Gaskell (circa 1901)
 * Jack Harkness (leader of Torchwood; de facto leader of Torchwood Institute following the Battle of Canary Wharf, hired circa 1898)
 * Gerald Carter (leader circa 1918)
 * Harriet Derbyshire (physicist; died circa 1919)
 * Douglas Caldwell (active circa 1918)
 * Lydia Childs (active circa 1918)
 * Charles Quinn (active circa 1918)
 * Alex Hopkins (leader; deceased, circa 1999).
 * Owen Harper, (medical doctor, second in command; deceased)
 * Toshiko Sato, (computer specialist, reverse engineering of alien artifacts; hired circa 2006, deceased circa 2008)
 * Ianto Jones, (administrator and general support, moved from Torchwood 1)
 * Suzie Costello (weapons specialist, second-in-command prior to death, deceased circa 2007)
 * Gwen Cooper, (liaison with regular police, temporary leader during Jack's absence, hired circa 2007)
 * Martha Jones (medical officer, temporary, circa 2008)

Parallel Torchwood on Pete's World

 * Rose Tyler (Hired due to experience with Aliens, circa 2010)
 * Other individuals are known to have used the parallel Torchwood's facilities, including Pete Tyler and Mickey Smith, but Rose is the only confirmed Torchwood member.

Torchwood branches
The Torchwood Institute is known to have four denominations across Britain:


 * Torchwood 1, in Canary Wharf, destroyed during the battle with the Cybermen, and consequently abandoned,
 * Torchwood 2, run from above a bank in Glasgow by a "very strange man" called Archie,
 * Torchwood 3, in Cardiff, set above the Cardiff rift,
 * Torchwood 4, lost, but, in the words of Captain Jack Harkness, "we'll find it someday".

Torchwood 1 also had a base under the Thames Barrier and owns the security firm "H.C. Clements" used to recreate Huon particles. (DW: The Runaway Bride)

The parallel Earth, Pete's World, also had a version of Torchwood. (DW: Doomsday).

Behind the Scenes
'Torchwood' was a code name for the new series of Doctor Who when it was in production, partly to keep it secret, partly to keep people from absconding with tapes of it before it was produced. The word 'Torchwood' itself is an anagram of 'Doctor Who'.

'Torchwood' is also the name of a spin-off series from the BBC set in Cardiff in the Doctor Who universe.

See also Torchwood.