Doctor Who Appreciation Society

The Doctor Who Appreciation Society is the longest running Doctor Who fan group in the world. It formed in 1966 after the first episode of The Celestial Toymaker, originally called the Doctor Who Fan Club, the name change occurred in 1976. Its President was a fan called Jan Vincent-Razzi, who in 1976 was joined by co-oridnator Stephen Payne. After the name change is when things really took off for the club. In 1976 the first official magazine for the society was launched called The Celestial Toyroom, in recognition of the date of which the club was formed. It  was a monthly newspaper. In 1976 Razzi and Payne rose in publicity through the publication of the book The Making of Doctor Who. In 1977 members of the society helped the BBC make the documentary Whose Doctor Who? and in August 1977 the society hosted their first conference in Broomwood Church Hall in London. The convention was given the name the Panopticon after the name of Gallifrey's parliament building and a Prison ship which was designed by the designer of the Cosmic Masque Jeremy Bentham

During 1976, membership of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society was no longer free. You would have to pay to be a member of which would get the monthly addition of the newspaper The Celestial Toyroom. In January 1978 the society had to pay the BBC fees for using Doctor Who content in their magazines and leaflets.

In late 1977 Cosmic Masque came into place, the Society's fiction magazine. It was edited by John Peel, written by Steven Roy Evans and designed by Jeremy Bentham. In October 1979 saw the release of Doctor Who Weekly (later retitled Doctor Who Monthly) which was official released by the BBC and comic suppliers Marvel. This was competition to the The Celestial Toyroom and Cosmic Masque. Jeremy Bentham who at the time of 1977 was the designer of Cosmic Masque and had risen to the high rank of Head of Reference left to become the principal writer for Doctor Who Weekly. His position of Head of Reference and designer for the Cosmic Masque was replaced by David J Howe.

In early 1980 co-orindator Stephen Payne also resigned and left to work for a magazine publishing company called Visual Imagination. In August 1980 saw the resignation  Jan Vincent Razzi, who was President of the Society since its formation in 1966. He joined Payne at Visual Imagination.

Following Razzi's decision to leave Jon Pertwee was appointed President of the society. Pertwee is of course most famous for is role of playing the Third Doctor himself. Pertwee was most notable as representing Doctor Who in a numerous ways such as being the only Doctor to feature in official BBC radio dramas in the 1990's and appeared in independent fan productions such as PROBE which were written by Mark Gattiss. Pertwee would also attend many conventions abroad and managed to convince Patrick Troughton to attend these conventions. Sadly of course Troughton died at an American convention. Jon Pertwee.

In 1980 saw the development of sub-groups as the society grew. There were 17 groups all headed by individual people, 2 of which were located in America. This eventually seemed to be very hard to co-ordinate overseas. This eventually resulted in North American Doctor Who Society being formed in 1984, completely separate from the society in Britain.

In 1983 problems with the newspaper The Celestial Toyroom led to it being released four times a year instead of its original monthly release, the same occurring for The Cosmic Masque.

During the 1980's membership started to decline. This was largely due to the formation of the highly popular BBC Marvel magazine, Doctor Who Monthly and the formation of the rival group the Whonatics. The formation of the convention company, Pheonix also resulted in less people attending the Society's conventions.

In 1995 Cosmic Masque released nine audio stories featuring numerous guest stars reading them such as Elizabeth Sladen , Sophie Aldred, John Leeson and Brian Miller. In 1998, 8 more were released narrated by more guest stars including Colin Baker, Caroline John, Louise Jameson and Wendy Pedbury.

In 1996, The President of DWAS, Jon Pertwee died. After his death he gave permission for his voice to be used in future Doctor Who productions. He was replaced by Nicholas Courtney who had portrayed Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart on and off from 1968 to 1989 and on a regular basis from 1970 to 1973.

During the late 1980's the Society struggled to pay for fees to the BBC. Space Rocket Ltd helped the DWAS commercially. Because of this problem what was considered the largest event in Doctor Who Fandom, The Panopicton had to stop in 2003.

DWAS still operates with groups for Doctor Who publicity and has a long history of operating with Riverside studios. Perhaps the most notable thing that the DWAS has done was in 2004 where they hosted the screening of the DVD release of Day of the Daleks on behalf of 2entertain and BBC Worldwide.

In 2011 the Society's third president, Nicholas Courtney died. Colin Baker replaced him and is still the president today. Colin Baker marks the only actor to play the Doctor but also write for the show. He wrote a Matt Smith novel.

The DWAS have been behind the inclusion of the blue plaque on the houses of Verity Lambert and Warriss Husein who were the first producer and director of the show respectively. In 2016 a Jon Pertwee Blue Plaque was also presented by the DWAS.

The 40th anniversary of the society or 50th if counting Razzi's orginal fan club occurred in 2016. A two day convention occurred on 6th-7th May 2016 in Arora Hotel in Gatwick, London, entitled The Capitol. It was the first convention of the DWAS since the annual conventions ended in 2003.

In winter 2016 The Celestial Toyroom and Cosmic Masque went digital only.

In May 2017, The Capitol II occurred in Arora Hotel. It is unknown if these conventions will become annual like the popular Popicon who not.