continuity - How old were each of the Doctor's incarnations?

As of the second season of Matt Smith as The Doctor, we've seen him give his age variously in a range between 900 and 1100 years (Note: I'm being deliberately vague here to avoid spoilers; being more accurate wouldn't add to my question).

As Matt's the eleventh doctor, this implies an average of 100 years of living per incarnation, assuming that the ages are somewhat accurate and not just fabrications.

Do we know the ages of any of the "other" Doctors?

How old was the Jon Pertwee Doctor, for example? Was he younger than expected, given that the regeneration was forced upon him?

William Hartnell's Doctor looks oldest physically, but did that correlate with actual age in any way?

Answer

As with any time travel story, it's complicated! There are several contradictory statements, especially if you consider (as most do) the comics, novels, audio dramas and supplementary media (like annuals) canon - for this answer I'll stick to the TV episodes only. However, there are some ages that are generally accepted. Remember also that the Doctor has been caught lying about his age at least once.

In the 4th Doctor story The Pirate Planet Romana said that the Doctor had been traveling in the TARDIS for 523 years, and in The Ribos Operation gives his age as 759 (she was only 140). So the 1st Doctor was at least 236 when we first see him. This is 'confirmed' in the 11th Doctor story The Doctor's Wife, when the TARDIS says the Doctor has traveled with it for 700 years, at which time the Doctor is supposedly 909 (except that he's meant to be older by then - see below).

In the story where the 1st Doctor regenerates into the 2nd (The Tomb of the Cybermen), the 2nd Doctor tells Victoria he is around 450.

The 3rd Doctor's age is vague - we don't really know how long he was imprisoned by the Time Lords prior to regeneration (and whether that counts, or was some sort of Time Lock), and he didn't say much about his age.

The 4th Doctor makes several references to his age being about 750 (The Brain of Morbius, The Seeds of Doom, The Robots of Death, as well as the Romana reference above), and 760 by The Power of Kroll, which is near the time he regenerates into the 5th Doctor.

The 6th Doctor described himself as roughly 900 (Revelation of the Daleks and The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet). In Time and the Rani, when the 6th Doctor regenerates into the 7th, he is 953 years old (this is also the Rani's age and the combination to a lock).

The 8th Doctor doesn't say anything about his age in the movie, although there are references in the stories in other media (over 1000).

We now get to a problem: the 9th Doctor says he is around 900 years old in The Empty Child. This, of course, is problematic, because he's meant to be older already. Even if you allow for this to be rounded, he gets more specific later (and younger than 953).

The 10th Doctor continues with the new ages, saying he is 903 in Voyage of the Damned. However, this doesn't really work (even in the new scheme) because he spent over two years looking for Martha (The Infinite Quest), as well as months mucking about on Earth (Human Nature, Blink).

In the final 10th Doctor episode, The End of Time, he says that he is 906, indicating to the Ood that he spent some time traveling along after Donna.

The 11th Doctor tells Amy and others that he is 907 (later 908, and 909) in several episodes, and in The Impossible Astronaut

The 11th Doctor from the future tells Amy that he is 1103.

There are various theories (but no explanation in TV episodes or other official media) about the "900 problem", such as:

• Trauma from the Time War making him forget his proper age.


• He was de-aged (he gets aged in The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords).


• He lies more consistently about it now (or was lying more consistently before!).


• He's now giving his age as the number of years spent traveling in the TARDIS (i.e. he's about 1145 now) - this works nicely with the ages from earlier, as long as you interpret the TARDIS saying they have been traveling together for ~700 years as meaning something a bit different (perhaps actual time in the TARDIS, not on-world).

The amount of time in each incarnation is more based on how quickly he gets into danger he can't get out of. The 1st Doctor was apparently a bit more careful (which matches the character), so lasted a lot longer. The 10th Doctor lasted only a few years. The 11th may last longer than the first - we have yet to see.

In terms of the physical appearance, the Doctor generally looks younger each time he regenerates (out of universe, a big problem with Hartnell was that his age and ill health caused problems - so going with a younger actor made sense - although a very young one would have been a huge change rather than a subtle one).

• William Hartnell was 55-58 when he played the Doctor.


• Patrick Troughton was 46-49 when he played the Doctor.


• Jon Pertwee was actually older than Troughton - 51-55 when he played the Doctor.


• Tom Baker was again younger: 40-47 when he played the Doctor (the longest so far).


• Getting younger continued with Peter Davison: he was 30-33 when he played the Doctor (we see him aged when he appears in Time Crash - Davison was then 56).


• With Colin Baker the trend is reversed (perhaps the Doctor was starting to look a bit too young). He was 41-43 when he played the Doctor.


• Sylvester McCoy was around the same age as his predecessor: 44-46 when he originally played the Doctor. We see him aged in the 8th Doctor movie, since McCoy was then 53 (still younger than Hartnell).


• Paul McGann was 37 in the 8th Doctor movie.


• Christopher Eccleston was 41 for his time as the Doctor.


• With David Tennant we start getting younger again. He was 34-39 during his time as the Doctor (he almost certainly gets the prize of playing the largest proportion of his incarnation's life on screen - 5 years of acting for only 3 or 4 in-character).



• Matt Smith was only 29 - we've finally got younger than Davison.


• John Hurt was 73 when taking on the role of The Warrior (Doctor #8.5, though chronologically appearing after Matt Smith).


• Peter Capaldi was 55 when he took on the role of the 12th Doctor.

Much more detail is available at the TARDIS index file.