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Doctor Who character
Ian Chesterton
Ian
Affiliated with	First Doctor
Race	Human
Home planet	Earth
Home era	1963
First appearance	An Unearthly Child
Last appearance	The Chase
Portrayed by	William Russell Roy Castle (film)

Ian Chesterton is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and a companion of the First Doctor. He was originally played by William Russell, and was one of the members of the programme's very first regular cast, appearing in the bulk of the first two seasons from 1963 to 1965. In a film adaptation of one of the serials, Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965), he was played by Roy Castle, but with a very different personality and backstory.

Contents 1 Character history 2 Appearances in other media 3 List of appearances 3.1 Television 3.2 Films 3.3 Video 3.4 Novels 3.5 Short stories 3.6 Comics

Ian Chesterton is a science teacher at the Coal Hill School and works with Barbara Wright, a history teacher. One of their students, Susan Foreman, the granddaughter of the Doctor, shows unusually advanced knowledge of science and history. Attempting to solve the mystery of this "unearthly child," Ian and Barbara follow Susan back home to a junkyard, where they hear her voice coming from what appears to be a police box. When they investigate further, they discover that the police box exterior hides the much larger interior of a time machine known as the TARDIS, and are whisked away on an adventure in time and space with the Doctor and Susan.

Ian provides the series with an action-oriented figure, able to perform the physical tasks that the elderly Doctor is not. His concern, above all, is for the safety of the TARDIS crew, and in the early stories he often takes issue with the Doctor's habit of placing the group in harm's way just to satisfy his own curiosity. The chemistry between Barbara and himself is also evident, although the nature of their relationship is never made explicit in the television series.

Ian shows a surprising breadth of skills throughout his tenure with the Doctor. He manages to create fire (An Unearthly Child), rides a horse, knows how to fight with swords (The Romans) and is knowledgeable about pressure points that can paralyze an opponent (The Aztecs). He is also fiercely protective of Barbara, going on a lone mission to rescue her from Saracens in The Crusade. In that story, he is also knighted by King Richard I of England as "Sir Ian of Jaffa," although presumably he would be unable to use that title in his own time. After many travels, Ian and Barbara eventually use a Dalek time machine to get home, albeit two years after their disappearance and presumably with much explaining to do to their friends and families.

The character of Ian was intended by the production team to return for a guest appearance in the 1983 Doctor Who story Mawdryn Undead, but this plan fell through when Russell proved to be unavailable. However, in 1999 Russell did return to the part for the BBC Worldwide video release of The Crusade, two of the four episodes of which are missing from the archives. Russell provided linking narration between the existing episodes in character as an aged Ian Chesterton reminiscing about the events of the story.

The novelisation of The Daleks by David Whitaker is written in first person from Ian Chesterton's perspective, and changes his initial meeting with Susan, Barbara and the Doctor to a car accident involving the two ladies. The TARDIS then arrives on Skaro rather than prehistoric earth, with the story continuing much as the TV serial from then on. In this version, Ian is chemist returning from an unsuccessful job interview, but his character is otherwise unchanged.

In the film adaptation Dr. Who and the Daleks, Ian Chesterton is the boyfriend of Barbara, grand-daughter of Dr. Who. Rather than the man of action from the TV series, this Ian is a clumsy idiot who manages to survive more through luck than by any degree of competence. In Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD, the character of Ian is replaced by Tom Campbell, who performs much the same role as Ian in the original TV episode.

Since 1994, the character has also appeared in various novels from Virgin Publishing and BBC Books, set between televised adventures during his particular era of the programme. One BBC Books novel, The Face of the Enemy by David A. McIntee (1998), picks up the story of Ian and Barbara, now married to each other, in the early 1970s. In this book, they have a young son named John. Many of the novels mention a 1980s pop star named Johnny Chester or Johnny Chess, intended to be the same character. Chess is idolised by the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace and is briefly married to the Fifth Doctor's companion Tegan.

In 2005, Russell acted in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio play The Game, opposite Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, but playing a character other than Ian Chesterton.

Season 1

• An Unearthly Child
• The Daleks
• The Edge of Destruction
• Marco Polo
• The Keys of Marinus
• The Aztecs
• The Sensorites
• The Reign of Terror

Season 2

• Planet of Giants
• The Dalek Invasion of Earth
• The Rescue
• The Romans
• The Web Planet
• The Crusade
• The Space Museum
• The Chase

• Dr. Who and the Daleks

• The Crusade VHS release (specially filmed segments)

Virgin Missing Adventures

• Venusian Lullaby by Paul Leonard
• The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Christopher Bulis
• The Plotters by Gareth Roberts

Past Doctor Adventures

• The Face of the Enemy
• The Witch Hunters by Steve Lyons
• City at World's End by Christopher Bulis
• Byzantium! by Keith Topping
• The Eleventh Tiger by David A. McIntee
• The Time Travellers by Simon Guerrier

• "Brief Encounter" by David Bishop (Doctor Who Magazine #169)
• "The Book of Shadows" by Jim Mortimore (Decalog)
• "The Nine-Day Queen" by Matt Jones (Decalog 2: Lost Property)
• "The Last Days" by Evan Pritchard (Rebecca Levene) (Short Trips)
• "Romans Cutaway" by David A. McIntee (More Short Trips)
• "Nothing at the End of the Lane (3 Parts)" by Daniel O'Mahony (Short Trips and Sidesteps)
• "The True and Indisputable Facts in the Case of the Ram’s Skull" by Mark Michalowski (Short Trips: Zodiac)
• "The Splintered Gate" by Justin Richards (Short Trips: Companions)
• "Distance" by Tara Samms (Short Trips: Companions)
• "Mire and Clay" by Gareth Wigmore (Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors)
• "The Thief of Sherwood" by Jonathan Morris (Short Trips: Past Tense)
• "White Man's Burden" by John Binns (Short Trips: Past Tense)
• "Every Day" by Stephen Fewell (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)
• "The Duke’s Folly" by Gareth Wigmore (Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins)
• "Set in Stone" by Charles Auchterlonie and John Isles (Short Trips: The History of Christmas)
• "The Ruins of Time" by Philip Purser-Hallard (Short Trips: Time Signature)

• "A Religious Experience" by Warwick Gray and Colin Andrew (Doctor Who Yearbook 1994)

v • d • e Companions of the First Doctor
Season 1								Season 2									Season 3										Season 4→
001	002	003	004	005	006	007	008	009	010	011	012	013	014	015	016	017	018	019	020	021	022	023	024	025	026	027	028	029
Susan										Vicki										Sara	Dodo
Ian																			Katarina							Ben→
Barbara																										Polly→
															Steven