Professor George Litefoot was a pathologist in London during the 1880s and 1890s whose path intersected with the Doctor more than once.
Biography
Early life
Litefoot was born in Twickenham in the mid 1830s. (PROSE: The Bodysnatchers; AUDIO: Voyage to Venus) His father was a brigadier-general who was involved in the punitive expedition to China in 1860. He lived in Peking as an attaché and George spent most of his childhood in China. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
Litefoot had pet mice as a child. (AUDIO: Encore of the Scorchies)
He spent some of his youth in China feeding smaller animals to bigger ones. (AUDIO: Return of the Repressed)
Litefoot had an aunt named Agatha. She owned a goat, which once ate an entire antique tablecloth. (AUDIO: Voyage to Venus)
After his father's death in 1873, Litefoot returned to England. He also brought back the 51st century war criminal Magnus Greel's time cabinet, which had been disguised as a Chinese puzzle box and was a gift from Emperor Tongzhi to his mother. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
He visited India numerous times prior to the 1890s. (AUDIO: Voyage to Venus)
In 1887, the Seventh Doctor lodged with Professor Litefoot whilst he was in London. (PROSE: All-Consuming Fire)
Encountering the Doctor, Jago and Leela
In 1889, he was investigating several corpses related to Greel and the Tong of the Black Scorpion when he encountered the Fourth Doctor and Leela. He helped them with their investigations, and lent the Doctor a gun to kill the giant rats created by Greel. At the same time, Greel found out that Litefoot had the time cabinet and sent Mr Sin and his other servants to take it back.
Litefoot joined forces with Henry Gordon Jago to find where Greel escaped to. They followed him to the House of the Dragon, where they were captured by members of the Tong. The Doctor tried to help free them, but he was captured as well. During the final confrontation with Greel, Jago and Litefoot helped to distract Mr Sin. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
The Fourth Doctor once described Jago and Litefoot as being "outstanding and extraordinary." (AUDIO: The Justice of Jalxar)
Investigating infernal incidents
His association with Henry Gordon Jago continued beyond their adventure with the Doctor. The pair were involved as amateur sleuths in several other mysteries as well as receiving help from Ellie Higson and Sergeant Percival Quick. (AUDIO: The Mahogany Murderers, Jago and Litefoot)
In 1890, Jago and Litefoot later descended into the London sewers to kill the rest of Greel's remaining giant rats with a Gatling gun and on the way there, failed to recognise the Fifth Doctor, who had regenerated since their first encounter with him. (PROSE: A Victorian Interlude)
Jago believed that he and Litefoot were the inspiration for the serialised adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson by Arthur Conan Doyle featured in The Strand magazine. (AUDIO: Jago in Love)
Litefoot kept mementos of all of his adventures with Jago. (AUDIO: Mind Games)
Jago considered Litefoot to be his best friend. (AUDIO: Encore of the Scorchies)
Tracking down Tulp
After the Doctor's departure, he and Henry Gordon Jago began many adventures together, finding murderers and so on. Such as an adventure involving mahogany mannequins, animated by the living spirits of criminals in prison, who had been assisted by a man called Dr Tulp. However, the mannequins were defeated, but Tulp escaped. It was after this adventure that Litefoot met a future acquaintance of his, a barmaid called Ellie Higson. (AUDIO: The Mahogany Murderers)
They later encountered a rapidly changing Captain, who was transforming into a werewolf-like beast that was roaming London, and sucked the blood from people. They were forced to kill the beast, but Ellie's younger brother Jim was infected by the beast, and they killed him. (AUDIO: The Bloodless Soldier)
He then encountered a body of man who had already been killed, who had seemingly awakened from the dead. He was rivalled by Doctor Ormond Sacker who pretended to poison him using cyanide in his drink. It was all an act though, part of the Far-Off Travellers tradition. (AUDIO: The Bellova Devil)
Following the trail of Toby's wife, Litefoot discovered that people were being possessed when they meet Mrs Vanguard, someone who can apparently talk to spirits. This caused her clients to spontaneously combust. He then helped to free Jago and Ellie's bodies, although it meant Toby had to sacrifice himself. (AUDIO: The Spirit Trap)
Litefoot and Jago met Dr Tulp again, when they discovered that he had the ability of astral projection, and could take knowledge from the future and use it for profit. They found that Tulp was mining uranium and constructing more mahogany mannequins to replace important politicians, as a means of making profit and seizing control of the world. However, Tulp had in fact been possessed by an entity who wanted to dominate the world. Litefoot and Jago stopped his plans, and killed Tulp. (AUDIO: The Similarity Engine)
Litefoot and Sanders
Later, Litefoot began working with a man called Gabriel Sanders who helped him to investigate the cause of a number of mysterious murders, whose victims had been drained of blood. George made sure that Henry was kept away from the investigation to protect him. However, after Henry had intervened against George's wishes, they discovered that Sanders was the vampire killing the victims. They left him to die in a burning building, but not before he claimed Ellie as one of his victims. (AUDIO: Litefoot and Sanders)
Later, they boarded a train carrying the body of Ellie to a cemetery, to investigate whether she would become a vampire too. They arrived in the cemetery, and discovered an associate of Sanders, Doctor Sibelius Crow, who Litefoot had also met before. Discovering that he was attempting to experiment with and revive the dead. However, Crow was killed by the now vampire, Ellie. (AUDIO: The Necropolis Express)
Soon after this adventure, George and Henry foiled a plan by a group of harlequins, to infiltrate Henry's newly-owned New Regency Theatre, and drain the lifeforce from the audience. They found that their travelling caravan was, in fact, a living thing, and created the people who travelled within it. However, they managed to destroy the caravan. It was after this adventure, that Litefoot managed to discover the cure for Ellie's vampirism, but also, that Sanders had survived being burnt to death in the building. (AUDIO: The Theatre of Dreams)
Jago and Litefoot. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
Litefoot and Jago discovered Sanders plan to breed a new race of vampires, using the Ruthven family line. However, they managed to kill the only perfect vampire in the family, Lord Ruthven, as well as Sanders himself. During this encounter, Sacker was killed by a vampire. After defeating Sanders, Leela arrived at Litefoot's house, while he and Jago were there, to tell them that she was sent from Gallifrey to investigate time distortions. (AUDIO: The Ruthven Inheritance)
Leela and the time traps
Litefoot, Jago and Leela discovered that due to the time distortion, a sailor from the 1950s called Johnny Skipton was removed from his time before he was supposed to die while sinking in his ship. This caused apparitions of the dead crew, to arrive in the 1890's to take Johnny away. To prevent the time distortion, Jago, Litefoot and Leela convinced Johnny to accept his fate, and departed back to his ship, to die. (AUDIO: Dead Men's Tales)
After this, they all discovered that the time distortion was causing a fictional character, called the Man at the End of the Garden, to become real, and caused the disappearance of the writer who created him. However, they managed to retrieve the writer and defeat the Man. (AUDIO: The Man at the End of the Garden)
The team traced the next source of time distortion in the New Regency Theatre, where it was linking the 1890's time zone, with the 2011 time zone, bringing people from 2011 to the New Regency, and vice versa. This also caused the New Regency itself to come to life, but they stopped the time distortion, causing the theatre to return to normal, and return the people from 2011 to their native time. However, they discovered that Professor Payne was behind all the time distortions. (AUDIO: Swan Song)
As Payne arrived, the amount of time distortions rapidly increased, and threatened to destroy the world. They discovered that Payne was conducting experiments with time to bring his wife, Shania, back from the dead. This was part of an arrangement he made with beings called the Time Eaters. However, the Time Eaters betrayed Payne, and he helped Jago, Litefoot and Leela to destroy the Time Eaters, and return all objects out of their time zone to their proper place in time and space. Shortly after this, Litefoot and Jago were summoned by a man called Professor Claudius Dark. (AUDIO: Chronoclasm)
Kempston, Hardwick and Dark
Jago and Litefoot escaped Dark, believing him to be hostile, and decided to go to have a holiday in Brighton. Litefoot became possessed by the spirit of a woman, who was looking for the spirit of her husband. However, Litefoot was freed and they returned to London. (AUDIO: Jago in Love)
Dark later found Jago and Litefoot, and offered them tickets to see the new Oscar Wilde play. Where they had an adventure with Wilde, and a man called Gadd hired to kill him. It was after saving Wilde, that Jago and Litefoot discovered that two men, Mr Kempston and Mr Hardwick hired Gadd, and that they were Professor Dark's enemies. (AUDIO: Beautiful Things)
Jago and Litefoot tried to escape from Mr Kempston and Mr Hardwick by boarding a train, which was their intention in the first place. Discovering that the train was caught in a time loop, in an attempt to trap them. However, thanks to Leela, Ellie and Dark, they were both freed. It was here that Dark revealed his true identity, as the Sixth Doctor. (AUDIO: The Lonely Clock)
They all discovered that Mr Kempston and Mr Hardwick were constructs created by a Temparon ship using sand to form bodies, which had crashed to Earth, as a result of Payne's time experiments. However, Jago, Litefoot, Leela and the Doctor managed to dissipate the bodies of Mr Kempston and Mr Hardwick with water, effectively killing them. After this, Leela returned to Gallifrey, and they were invited to join the Doctor as his companions aboard the TARDIS. They eagerly accepted the offer, though Jago began to suffer from motion sickness on his first trip. (AUDIO: The Hourglass Killers)
Travelling through time
The Sixth Doctor travelling with Henry Gordon Jago and Litefoot. (AUDIO: Voyage to Venus)
On their first trip through space and time, Jago and Litefoot arrived on Venus in the far future, where they discovered the corrupt Venusian Queen Vulpina was imprisoning an alien race called the Thraskin. However, with the Doctor's help, they defeated Vulpina and released the Thraskin, resulting in a peaceful treaty between the Thraskins and Venusians. Jago, Litefoot and the Doctor then left Venus. (AUDIO: Voyage to Venus)
Although they intended to return to London, the TARDIS arrived in the Roanoke Island, 1590, and were held hostage by a local tribe of Native Americans. They discovered that the tribe were being terrorised by a group of ethereal children, who had been present for four hundred years. Whenever they kidnapped natives, they would leave behind the word Croatoan, inscribed in the place where they once were. Litefoot, Jago and the Doctor discovered that Croatoan was an island, which they intended to explore, but not before Henry was kidnapped. When they arrived on Croatoan Island, they found Henry, and discovered the TARDIS, which had been on Croatoan for four hundred years. When they found Henry's captor, he revealed that he was Sir Walter Raleigh, who had discovered the TARDIS, while George and the Doctor were venturing to Croatoan. After tampering with the controls, Raleigh travelled back four hundred years, and encountered a group of alien beings, who would later become the children who had terrorised the tribe. He taught them how to live and hunt, and in return, they extended his life. However, the Doctor managed to communicate with Walter in the TARDIS, four hundred years prior, and prevent him from travelling in the TARDIS. This then caused the alternative Walter to disappear, and the aliens would never have terrorised the tribe. After restoring the timeline, the Doctor deposited Litefoot and Jago back in London. However, after the Doctor left, they discovered that he had left them stranded in London on 21 February 1968. (AUDIO: Voyage to the New World)
Stuck in the sixties
Soon after, Jago and Litefoot discovered Ellie was still alive, as an effect of the vampire curse she still had. Litefoot eventually became a bookshop owner when he met Dectective Inspector Dave Sacker. Jago and Litefoot told him the circumstances which lead them to their arrival in the 1960s, just in time for all of them to foil a plan to hypnotise the nation using a mystical statue and Jago's new television show. The plan was foiled by using a psychic crystal which Jago picked up on Venus. It was after the adventure that Jago and Litefoot met a performer on Jago's show, Guinevere Godiva. (AUDIO: The Age of Revolution)
Jago and Litefoot also stopped an alien being and a mad guru from killing people by eating food containing the aliens offspring. The guru believed the alien was a god, and the aliens way of reproduction was by laying eggs in it's victims and eating them from the inside out. (AUDIO: The Case of the Gluttonous Guru)
Jago and Litefoot also discovered a book which was created by Thomas Bloodchild as a means of preserving his life essence inside it's pages. After several people attempted to steal the book to achieve immortality, Bloodchild was resurrected, but quickly destroyed again by Jago and Litefoot. After this encounter, they visited a crypt where they discovered several unusual artefacts, which included the time cabinet, containing a murderous Mr Sin. (AUDIO: The Bloodchild Codex)
However, they promptly escaped from Sin, and recruited Sacker to investigate the crypt with reinforcements to discover that all the artefacts had vanished. Later on, during Jago's show, Guinevere Godiva made Ellie vanish, and held her to ransom, which led them the rendezvous point, the House of the Dragon. There, Godiva revealed she had reconstructed Mr Sin and the key to the time cabinet, which she intended to use to recreate Magnus Greel from the psychic imprint left in the key, using Jago's Venusian crystal. However, Godiva needed a large quantity of energy to start the process, so Mr Sin betayed her, put her in the catalytic extraction chamber and used her life energy as power, killing her. Successful, Greel's essence possessed Sacker, killing him, but giving Greel life. However, Greel was killed when Ellie stood in the extraction chamber and overrloaded his intake of life energy, due to her unnatural lifespan. Using the time cabinet, Jago and Litefoot departed 1968, arriving back in 1893. But immediately upon their arrival, they were greeted by a mysterious man calling himself the Colonel. (AUDIO: The Final Act)
Return to Victorian London
In 1894, he assisted the Eighth Doctor and his companion Samantha Jones in investigating a Zygon ship beneath the River Thames. (PROSE: The Bodysnatchers)
Ten years after their first encounter, the Fourth Doctor returned to Jago and Litefoot's native time with his new companion, Romana. With their combined effort, they investigated the connection between an alien justice robot crashing to Earth, and a Victorian vigilante called the Pugilist. (AUDIO: The Justice of Jalxar)
Later life
Litefoot read records in 1968 which stated that he and Jago died at some point in the 20th century. (AUDIO: The Case of the Gluttonous Guru)
Ellie cried profusely at his funeral. In 1968, she told his younger self from 1893 that it was a beautiful service but that she disapproved of his decision to have the hymn "All Things Bright and Beautiful" played during the funeral. (AUDIO: The Final Act)
Legacy
By 2014, UNIT had extensive files concerning Jago and Litefoot's exploits. (AUDIO: The Screaming Skull)
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