Born: 9th April 1909 (as Cecil Edwin Webber)
Died: 26th June 1969 (aged 60 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1963

Cecil Edwin Webber was born in Battersea, London. Disliking the name “Cecil”, he preferred to be called “Bunny”, a nickname inspired by his unusual way of running. As a youth, Webber was academically gifted and earned a scholarship to Oxford, but his parents pressured him to take a job in a bank instead. It was a decision which would irreparably damage their relationship. In the Thirties, Webber married a voice coach named Greta Scotchmur and they had a daughter, Felicity. He sought escape from the profession he disdained through acting. When the Second World War broke out, Webber left the bank to join the censorship bureau. Posted to Trinidad, he fell in love with coworker Isabelle Horsfall. She became his second wife in 1949, and she delivered Webber his second daughter, Jenny. Still happy in the theatre, Webber turned his hand to writing plays but, after a period of success, the critical drubbing meted out to one of his works in 1951 forced him to consider other options.

In 1952, Webber joined the BBC, despite his avowed dislike for television. Refusing to write crime stories or medical dramas, Webber's focus became children's programming such as The Silver Sword, The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, and an adaptation of Richmal Crompton's Just William stories (simply entitled William). As such, Webber was a natural candidate to contribute to the gestation of a new science-fiction series being planned in 1963, which became Doctor Who. It was Webber who wrote early drafts of the programme's format guide, and he was the first person tasked with scripting the debut serial. Although Webber's ideas for a story called “The Giants” were ultimately deemed impractical, elements of his script for the first episode were retained in its eventual replacement, 100,000 BC.

Webber's subsequent work for the BBC included episodes of Thorndyke and The Newcomers. In 1969, however, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died on June 26th. For many years, Webber was one of the most enigmatic figures in the annals of Doctor Who: a name about which little was known, absent from on-screen credits, surviving only as a phantom on production paperwork and in fan lore. That changed in 2013, when television historian Matthew Sweet tracked down Bella and Jenny Webber for the article “Bunny, We Hardly Knew You”, published in Doctor Who Magazine #468 (cover-dated January 2014).