William Hartnell

William Henry Hartnell (8 January 1908[1] – 23 April 1975) was an English actor. While he made numerous stage and television appearances and acted in over 75 British films, he is best remembered today as the First Doctor in BBC Television’s Doctor Who, which he played from 1963 to 1966.[2] He was also well known for military roles, playing Company Sergeant Major Percy Bullimore in the ITV sitcom The Army Game (1957, 1961) and Sergeant Grimshaw, the title character of the first Carry On film Carry On Sergeant (1958).

Hartnell was born on 8 January 1908 in the slums of the district of St Pancras, London, England, the only child of Lucy Hartnell, an unmarried mother.[3] Hartnell never discovered the identity of his father, whose particulars were left blank on his birth certificate, despite his efforts to trace him.[4] In various interviews, he claimed that he was born in Seaton, Devon, and that his father was a dairy farmer, but later said he was a soldier turned stockbroker.[5]

Hartnell was brought up partly by a foster mother, and also spent many holidays in Devon with his mother’s family of farmers, from whom he learned to ride horses.[6] Reportedly, Hartnell had a fall and was kicked by a horse. An unspecified person applied disinfectant to the open wound in an apparent attempt to cleanse it. However, the disinfectant was of a type unsuitable for first aid purposes and caused blisters. The end result was a worse wound than would otherwise be the case.[7] That left him with a large scar on his temple, which is actually visible in some of his stills shots even though it was covered with make-up during filming.[6] He was a second cousin of the fashion designer Norman Hartnell.[8]

Hartnell left school without prospects and dabbled in petty crime.[2][9] At the age of 16, he met the art collector Hugh Blaker, who later became his unofficial guardian, arranged for him to train as a jockey, and helped him to enter the Italia Conti Academy.[10] Theatre being a passion of Blaker’s, he paid for Hartnell to receive some “polish” at the Imperial Service College, though Hartnell found the strictures too much and ran away.[6] When Hartnell married, he and his wife continued to live in one of Blaker’s adjacent properties at Isleworth and their daughter was born there in 1929.[11]