Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart

Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart was one of the founders of UNIT and commander of its UK operations. From his second incarnation onwards, and withstanding some early tension between the two during the start of his third incarnation, the Doctor has long considered the Brigadier one of his most trusted Human allies closest friends. His long association with the Doctor has caused some to include him in rosters of the Time Lord's companions.

Nicknames
He was often referred to simply as "the Brigadier," and on rare occassions as "the Brig." During his second and  third incarnations, the Doctor sometimes called him by his surname, while in his fourth, the Doctor at least once addressed him as Alistair.

Early life and military career
Lethbridge-Stewart was born in 1930 (NA: Blood Heat, No Future), and attended Holborough, where he first met Teddy Fitzoliver (BBCR: The Paradise of Death).

The young Alistair suffered a lot of pressure to live up to the military traditions of the Lethbridge-Stewart family. (DWM: The Warkeeper's Crown)

He began his military career circa 1953 and attended Sandhurst with Billy Rutlidge (DW: The Web of Fear, Mawdryn Undead). He joined the Scots' Guards and was stationed for a time at Aldgate (DW: The Green Death).

Relationships
In Sierra Leone, Lethbridge-Stewart met Mariatu, the daughter of a chieftan, who bore a son by him, Mariama. (NA: Transit) He also had a romantic encounter with Doris on Brighton Beach. (DW: Planet of the Spiders) However, the Brigadier would marry another woman, Fiona. (MA: The Scales of Injustice) Fiona and Alistair had one child together, who they named Kate. (MA: The Scales of Injustice, Downtime)

Formation of UNIT
The then-Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart first met the Doctor during the Robot Yeti attack on the London Underground. (DW: The Web of Fear)

Shortly after, Lethbridge-Stewart had a meeting with Air Vice-Marshall "Chunky" Gilmore and learned from him that a group of hostile aliens had also been in the Shoreditch area of London in 1963, and that evidence of alien visits to Earth existed which went back millenia (MA:Downtime).

The Colonel was inspired to petition the United Nations to form a special military intelligence group to investigate alien and other unusual phenomena which might threaten the security of Earth. UNIT was soon formed, and Lethbridge-Stewart found himself appointed head of the United Kingdom branch and elevated to the rank of Brigadier.

The UNIT years
Four years after the Yeti invasion, UNIT was investigating the mysterious activities of electronics industrialist Tobias Vaughn. Vaughn was allied with the Mondasian Cybermen in the first of their many attempts to invade and conquer Earth. With the assistance of the Second Doctor, the Brigadier and his men were able to thwart this invasion attempt (DW: The Invasion)

When the Doctor was forced to undergo another regeneration and was exiled to 20th century Earth by the Time Lords, the Brigadier took on the new Doctor as UK UNIT's scientific advisor (DW: Spearhead from Space).

The new Doctor and the Brigadier lacked the easy rapport that they had enjoyed during the Doctor's previous incarnation. Their relationship was further strained after Lethbridge-Stewart set off explosive charges around a Silurian colony after promising the Doctor that he had no hostile intentions towards them. The Doctor considered this action murder, if not genocide. (DW: Doctor Who and the Silurians)

During a second encounter with the Silurians, the Brigadier's marriage with Fiona began to fail. (MA: The Scales of Injustice)


 * Fiona and the Brigadier would later divorce and Alistair would find himself estranged from his daughter, Kate.

This relationship lasted through the Doctor's next regeneration and even after the Time Lords' rescinding of the Doctor's exile. (DW: The Three Doctors). The Brigadier relied on the Doctor's scientific and technical expertise to defeat various alien and domestic threats. The Doctor's formal ties with UNIT gradually waned, all the more so in his fourth incarnation.

The 1970s and 1980s
Lethbridge-Stewart retired from UNIT and the military, taking a post as an A-level maths teacher at Brendon Public School.

In 1977, due to time travel, the Brigadier saw and touched his own future self from 1983. The time differential shorted out, causing an energy discharge - the Brigadier fell unconscious and Lethbridge-Stewart spent the next six years in a state of partial amnesia, having forgotten ever having met the Doctor. In 1983 the Brigadier encountered the Doctor, whom he did not recognize, met his past self from 1977 and in so doing completed the original time paradox. (DW: Mawdryn Undead)

The Brigadier was attending an anniversary reunion of UNIT when, along with the second Doctor, he was captured and transported to the Death Zone on Gallifrey (DW: The Five Doctors).

In 1989, Lethbridge-Stewart conducted an investigation of the dealings of SenéNet and was captured. He was later rescued by the Sixth Doctor, who uncovered and stopped yet another invasion attempt by the Nestene Consciousness (PDA: Business Unusual).

The 1990s to early 21st century

 * By the 1990s, Lethbridge-Stewart married his second wife, Doris, with whom he had that memorable holiday years ago.

The Brigadier worked with UNIT again during yet another attempt by the Great Intelligence to conquer Earth, together with two of the Doctor's former companions, Victoria Waterfield and Sarah Jane Smith, as well as re-uniting with his estranged daugher, Kate and meeting for the first time, his grandson, Gordon. (DW: Downtime)

The Brigadier came out of retirement briefly to help UNIT and its new commander, Brigadier Winifred Bambera, deal with an invasion from a parallel universe by the sorceress Morgaine. Once again, he met up with the Doctor, now in his seventh incarnation, who helped to defeat Morgaine. Lethbridge-Stewart distinguished himself during these events, singlehandedly taking on the Destroyer and dispatching him, armed only with a revolver loaded with silver bullets (DW: Battlefield).

In 1997 the Brigadier collaborated with the Eighth Doctor and Bernice Summerfield during an interplanetary crisis between Earth and Mars (NA: The Dying Days)

In 1999 he enlisted the help of an earlier Doctor and his companions Tegan and Turlough to prevent an invasion of Earth by the Jex (PDA: The King of Terror).


 * At the end of the Martian crisis, Lethbridge-Stewart was promoted to the rank of General, although he still preferred to be called "Brigadier." Later, he was also knighted.

21st century
While teaching at Sandhurst Military School, the Brigadier met the Tenth Doctor. (DWM: The Warkeeper's Crown)


 * This event has no date given, but the mid-1990's would seem one possibility. The renewal of his youth had not yet occured.

Lethbridge-Stewart attended the wedding of Bernice Summerfield and Jason Kane in 2010, and during the course of these events his youth was restored. Lethbridge-Stewart thus managed to live on considerably past the normal span for Humans of his time, dying at last sometime in the 2050s (NA: Happy Endings, PDA: The King of Terror).

During a boat outing with Doris, Lethbridge-Stewart's boat capsized and Doris was drowned, an event which haunted him for years. (EDA: The Shadows of Avalon)

Alternate Brigadiers
The Inferno Earth is known to have had its own version of the Brigadier, known as the Brigade Leader. Loyal to the fascist leader who governed his version of Britain, the Brigade Leader was the antithesis of the Brigadier. He was shot and killed by Section Leader Elizabeth Shaw while trying to force the Doctor at gunpoint to escape his doomed Earth (DW: Inferno).

In another, both the Brigadier and the Doctor died saving Humanity from a hostile Silurian faction during the Wenley Moor incident. Humans and Silurians made peace with each other anyway. (DWM: Deadly Genesis)

Another alternate version of Lethbridge-Stewart is known to exist in a timeline where the Doctor begins his exile on Earth in 1997 rather than the earlier part of the 20th century. During this time, Lethbridge-Stewart lived out his retirement running a bar in Hong Kong (DWU:Sympathy for the Devil).

Quotes

 * Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart - Quotes

=See also=
 * Lethbridge-Stewart family