Yvonne Hartman

Yvonne Hartman was the Head of the Torchwood Institute and director of Torchwood London. It was a phone-call from Alex Hopkins before he killed himself that led her to rise through the ranks of Torchwood London and get the organisation ready for the 21st century. She combated a number of extraterrestrial threats and presided over the long-awaited capture of the Tenth Doctor before she became a Cyberman in the Battle of Canary Wharf, maintaining her will and killing a number of her fellow Cybermen.

Early life
Pippa believed that Yvonne was Sagittarius. Her father served in the British Army, meaning that she came "from all over", frequently travelling. She described herself as an "army brat". (AUDIO: Through the Ruins)

From her father, she acquired files on the Fendahl. (AUDIO: Night of the Fendahl) She told Mike that she had a brother who worked as a bouncer and read Voltaire. (AUDIO: One Rule) She had little love for her relatives and bemoaned that one could not choose their family. (AUDIO: New Girl)

Yvonne worked hard at school and was captain of the lacrosse team. (AUDIO: Through the Ruins)

Early days at Torchwood
Yvonne joined Torchwood One in the 1990s, (AUDIO: One Rule) where she uploaded the Fendahl files. (AUDIO: Night of the Fendahl) She told everyone that she was fine after her first kill but was unable to sleep. (AUDIO: New Girl) Early in her career, on New Year's Eve 1999, she received a phone call from Alex Hopkins, the leader of Torchwood Three, who spoke to her of his epiphany that Torchwood was not ready for the 21st century as he killed his team by shooting them. This incident made Yvonne realise that Torchwood needed a strong leader to face the 21st century. She rose through the ranks and became the head of the institute. (AUDIO: One Rule) She continued her predecessor's relationship with arms dealer Hank. (AUDIO: Uprising)

As head of Torchwood One, Yvonne rebuilt the institute from the ground up. Civil servant St John Colchester knew all about her and her achievements and believed that she was brilliant. (AUDIO: Poker Face) She knew about the Committee but believed that Torchwood was unaware of them. (AUDIO: One Rule)

In 2004, Yvonne received a phone-call from Suzie Costello, who told her that she had found Object One after destroying the factory of Ovid Industries. Yvonne sent a helicopter to pick her up and promised to talk to her about advancing her career in Torchwood. In truth, she had been aware of Ovid's construction of bodies for the Committee and was irritated by Suzie's actions. The locket was brought to London. (AUDIO: The Torchwood Archive)

As she was lonely, Yvonne repeatedly retconned Ianto Jones, an employee at a local coffee shop, in order to have somebody to talk to. She sympathised with him and his having to deal with his father. She employed his help to investigate Blind Summit, after which he asked her to retcon him and get his job back at a museum. She did so, but visited him sometime later to make use of his expertise and later recruited him at Torchwood (AUDIO: Blind Summit) as a junior researcher (TV: Cyberwoman, Fragments) and later as her personal assistant. (AUDIO: One Rule)

Beginning in 2005, Yvonne investigated the Void Ship with Ianto and Rajesh Singh as her personal assistants. (AUDIO: One Rule)

One of her attempts to open the ship led her to Torchwood Three. Shortly after 26 March 2005, Rajesh activated the Torchwood Three time bubble, which enabled her to inveigle her way into its base and procure their Drahvin scanner without the interference of Jack Harkness and his staff. She hoped it would finally solve the mystery of the sealed ship's content. Upon leaving, she learnt of the murder of the Lord Mayor of Cardiff and numerous mayoral candidates from Barry Jackson. She discovered that he had been using alien technology to kill his rivals so that he might become mayor and do the bidding of the Committee.

Yvonne made a cover story, which protected Barry from being arrested for the murders and in return, he would watch over Torchwood and notify her as soon as a certain alien would return. He agreed and she left him with a reminder of his atrocities by severely injuring him. She returned to London without the Drahvin scanner, which was destroyed in a fire, and resumed her investigation of the Sphere. (AUDIO: One Rule)

Rachel's takeover
In 2005, Yvonne hired Rachel Allan as Tommy Pierce's personal assistant. She fired Patrick after Rachel claimed that he had been spreading rumours and later fired and replaced Tommy as Head of Alien Acquisitions with Rachel after he was found drunk. She presented the Royal Hope transmat at a party which resulted in Dean's death. Yvonne quickly fled, realising that Rachel had framed her, a belief that was confirmed when Rachel called her to gloat. (AUDIO: New Girl)

Yvonne stayed a night at Ianto's flat before visiting Lord Jim Jacobin to find out what Rachel was up to. Learning that Planet XXX was involved, she visited Ex Libris at the New Cavendish Library to learn about it and its indigenous life-forms. Whilst there, Kieran Frost attempted to assassinate her under Rachel's Protocol 4 and later attempted to kill Soren and take her to Torchwood. However, Soren knocked him unconscious and Yvonne was able to flee with him. They were chased by an envoy from Planet XXX, who told Yvonne that Torchwood had been sending out messages of war. Yvonne killed him, believing it was kinder than leaving him to die. (AUDIO: Through the Ruins)

Yvonne was on the run from Torchwood for a month. Rachel sent alpha-level assassin Julius after her, but Yvonne hired a freelancer who saved her. With the money that she took from his corpse, she rented office space from which she called her alien contacts. She bought weapons from Hank and took them to Lord Miladar of the Korvax First Brood at the Cosy Night Budget Hotel, asking him to attack Torchwood.

Yvonne managed to stop Rachel's plans for an interstellar war with Planet XXX and retconned her into forgetting about Torchwood. (AUDIO: Uprising)

Fighting WOTAN
In 2006, Yvonne had the Law Machines commissioned. The machines immediately went rogue and killed Fiona McAndrew, whose identity Yvonne briefly assumed to thwart WOTAN. (AUDIO: The Law Machines) She came face-to-face with WOTAN once more whilst investigating Temporary Solutions. (AUDIO: 9 to 5)

Meeting with the Doctor
Hartman oversaw the projects that included the investigation of the Void Ship, as well as the ghost shift experiments that resulted in the invasion by the Cybermen from an alternate universe. She was not personally hostile to the Doctor, yet she was confident in the righteousness of Torchwood's actions to the point of fault, ignoring his recommendations and warnings. Hartman was fiercely patriotic, and believed that Torchwood's work was vital to the survival of the "British Empire" and was certain that their work would in fact lead to the restoration of the United Kingdom to the status of world power. Only when the end was near did she attempt to stop the experiments, only to find that the Cybermen had already taken control over key members of her staff. The controlled staff proceeded to override her orders and allow the Cybermen to continue their invasion. (TV: Army of Ghosts)

Yvonne, along with Jackie Tyler, was taken to be upgraded. Yvonne stated that she did her duty for queen and country, and walked into the Cyber-conversion unit, where she was then painfully upgraded.

However, Yvonne somehow managed to gain control over her new metallic body and performed one last known service, fending off the Cybermen approaching the top offices long enough for the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler to seal the breach between worlds. While fighting against the Cybermen she continued to utter the phrase — "I did my duty for queen and country." while weeping oily tears out her left eye socket. Her actions bought the Doctor and Rose the time they needed to banish the Daleks and Cybermen to the Void. (TV: Doomsday)

Yvonne had told Kieran Frost to throw Object One into the void. Whilst dying as a result of the battle, he gave it to Ianto Jones to take to Torchwood Cardiff. (AUDIO: The Torchwood Archive)

Alternate timeline
In an alternate timeline in which John Hart took control of the British Empire and the Torchwood Institute, Yvonne called to inform him of the discovery of the Sphere. Despite the reservations of Rajesh Singh, the King ordered that the Sphere be opened, resulting in the massacre of Torchwood One. (AUDIO: The Death of Captain Jack)

Alternate self
After being presumed dead, (AUDIO: Broken) Yvonne joined the reformed Torchwood Three in 2017, with the intention of becoming the new leader. (AUDIO: The Empty Hand) She was, in fact, from a parallel universe. (AUDIO: Poker Face)

Personality
Yvonne Hartman was an arrogant woman who was always convinced that everything Torchwood did was for the good of the country, even if others begged to differ. One example of her arrogance was when she stated that anything that was alien belonged to Torchwood. This included the Doctor's TARDIS, despite the Doctor's protests. Yvonne was also reckless, and meddled with the Void, which was something far beyond her understanding. (TV: Army of Ghosts)

Jackie Tyler said it was all her fault that the Cybermen and Daleks had invaded Earth, because Hartman was too reckless to try to put a stop to the experiments on the Void until it was too late. (TV: Doomsday)

Another example of both qualities was her ordering a Jathaa sunglider shot down over the Shetland Islands merely because it had "violated their airspace"; this risked igniting a major conflict between Earth and the Jathaa due to the ship's presumably non-hostile intentions. However, Yvonne did show uncertainty when the Doctor suddenly changed his demeanour; one moment the Time Lord was warning her not to open the void and the next he was cheerfully encouraging her. Hartman was so confused and uncertain by the Doctor's sudden change from foreboding to cheerful that she finally agreed not to open the void, although by then it was too late. (TV: Army of Ghosts)

Despite her arrogance and foolishness, Yvonne genuinely cared about her country, even managing to overcome the programming of the Cybermen due to her devotion to Britain. In her metal body she appeared to be crying as she stated that she'd done her duty for queen and country. She also showed a willingness to sacrifice herself as she fought the Cybermen by herself to give the Doctor and Rose time to open the void and most likely died in the process. (TV: Doomsday)

Although she admitted that the Doctor was a prisoner, Yvonne did try to make the Time Lord comfortable and treated him like a guest rather than a prisoner. She also liked to call her employees by their first names, saying that she was a "people person". Despite this she did display a more ruthless streak since she stated, rather cheerfully, that she could have Rose Tyler shot if the Doctor didn't know her. (TV: Army of Ghosts)

Hartman was ambitious and driven, believing she was the sort of leadership Torchwood needed and believing she could make the organisation better. She was also capable of being highly manipulative, telling Jackson she had figured out his plans long before he revealed them, and had been a step ahead of him the whole time - playing events to her advantage. Hartman seemed aggravated when men made heavy reference to her gender, telling Jackson not to refer to her as "love" and threatening to break someone's arm who groped her. (AUDIO: One Rule)

She liked Scotch. (AUDIO: One Rule)

Behind the scenes

 * Yvonne Hartman's name is similar to that of Yvonne Hartley from Spare Parts, the Big Finish story which inspired Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel.

Yvonne Hartman