For more than sixty years, Doctor Who has generated one of the most remarkable bodies of material culture in the history of British television. It exists on two levels: the production record, comprising the props, costumes, concept art, set dressings, and working documents that came directly out of making the programme, and the promotional record, the merchandise, toys, books, annuals, and press materials that carried Doctor Who into homes, high streets, and imaginations around the world.

The Who Archive was founded on the conviction that this material deserves a permanent, professionally managed home, one built for fans, researchers, and future generations and covering every era from Hartnell to the present. That home does not yet exist. We are working to build it.

The Who Archive is a collector-led initiative. Its foundation is the combined holdings of its founding collectors, who have committed their collections to this shared mission. Together, those collections represent one of the most significant concentrations of Doctor Who production and promotional heritage ever assembled. Our long-term goal is a permanent, brick-and-mortar institution where this material can be preserved, studied, and experienced by audiences around the world. We believe that as this project takes shape, other major collectors and researchers who share this conviction will find a natural home here, and that the archive will grow stronger for it.

The work begins with what we can do now: acquiring significant pieces before they are lost, documenting provenance, conducting historical research, stabilizing material at risk, and building relationships with the collectors, researchers, institutions, and production veterans who share this conviction. The archive is a private collection today and an institution in progress. Every piece we secure, every connection we make, every gap in the record we fill, is a step toward something permanent.

The Who Archive was brought to life by two founding collectors who share a conviction that Doctor Who's material heritage is worth preserving for the long term, not in private hands, but in a permanent institution accessible to all.

Christopher Hill has been collecting Doctor Who for more than fifty years. His earliest memories include scenes from The Power of the Daleks, and he traces the beginning of his serious collecting to the arrival of the first issue of Countdown in February 1971. Over the decades that followed, he built one of the world's foremost collections of Doctor Who toys, games, books, magazines, printed ephemera, and promotional and point-of-sale material from the start of the programme in 1963 to the present. That collection, catalogued and shared publicly through his website The Space Museum, has long reflected his belief that material in private hands should be as accessible as possible to fellow enthusiasts. Committing it to The Who Archive is the natural extension of that belief.

Troika Brodsky has been collecting screen-used props and costumes for nearly thirty years, building significant holdings across some of the most beloved franchises in film and television history before turning his full attention to Doctor Who. Though a lifelong fan of the programme, he came to collecting it relatively late, beginning with a deliberate focus on sonic screwdriver material before the scope of what was out there got the better of him. Along the way he discovered that sharing material with fellow fans was far more rewarding than keeping it at home, mounting multiple public exhibitions over the years, the most recent of which being a two-and-a-half year exhibition of Doctor Who material to the St. Louis Science Center in celebration of the show's 60th anniversary. Today his collection spans props, costumes, concept art, and production material from across the show's entire sixty-year history, and committing it to The Who Archive, working toward a permanent home where fans can experience this material firsthand, is the natural next step.

Production Heritage The screen-used and production-made record: props, costumes, concept art, set dressings, scripts, and working documents from across the programme's history. Catalogued with rigorous provenance research and historical context, and acquired with long-term conservation in mind.

Promotional Heritage The cultural footprint beyond the screen: licensed merchandise, toys, games, annuals, books, magazines, press and advertising materials, and branded ephemera spanning sixty-plus years - a record of how the programme reached the world and what it meant to the people who encountered it.

Preservation Curated acquisition of at-risk material as it passes between hands, ensuring the record remains intact for the long term.

Continuity of Stewardship A responsible home for material leaving private collections, keeping bodies of work coherent and ensuring they remain accessible rather than dispersed.

Public Access A permanent commitment to exhibition and public engagement - so that this heritage is not merely held, but seen, studied, and shared.

The collections that exist today are the result of decades of intentional work. Some span entire eras of the programme's history. Others are built around a single area of focus, a specific Doctor, a particular story, a beloved monster. What they share is that someone cared enough to seek this material out and keep it safe.

We are building something, and we know we cannot do it alone. The Who Archive was founded by collectors, and we believe it will grow through collectors. Our two founding collections form the institutional core of what we are building, but our vision is larger than any two collections. As the archive takes shape, we hope it will attract others who share not just a love of this material but a genuine commitment to its long-term stewardship and public accessibility. If that describes you, we would welcome a conversation.

We are also always interested in acquiring individual pieces and collections outright. If you have material you are ready to part with, we would love to hear from you. If selling is not on your mind today but might be down the road, or if a loan or donation is more aligned with what you are thinking, we are happy to explore whatever makes sense at whatever pace works for you.

Even simply knowing what significant material exists and who holds it is valuable to us as we work to build a fuller picture of what has survived. A conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

Contact The Who Archive in confidence to discuss your collection. contact@whoarchive.org

A debt of gratitude, sincerely offered.

Whatever survives from across the history of this programme exists because of people: researchers who spent years reconstructing production histories from fragments and fading memories; fans, collectors, and custodians who rescued artefacts and ephemera at their own expense; and those within and around the BBC, both in official preservation efforts and in the quieter, individual acts of someone who simply refused to let something be thrown away. The Who Archive rests upon the foundation they all laid. Without their stewardship, institutional and individual alike, much of what we are working to preserve would simply be gone.