Kit Pedler

Last updated 09 January 2020

Kit Pedler (1927-1981)
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Christopher Magnus Howard Pedler

Born: Saturday 11th June 1927
Died: Wednesday 27th May 1981 (age: 53)



Kit Pedler was a British medical scientist, science fiction author and writer on science in general.

He was the head of the electron microscopy department at the Institute of Ophthalmology, University of London, where he published a number of papers. Pedler's first television contribution was for the BBC programme Horizon.

In the mid-1960s, Pedler became the unofficial scientific adviser to the Doctor Who production team. Hired by Innes Lloyd to inject more hard science into the stories, Pedler formed a particular writing partnership with Gerry Davis, who was story editor on the programme. Their interest in the problems of science changing and endangering human life had led them to create the Cybermen.

Pedler and Davis devised and co-wrote Doomwatch, a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme which ran on BBC One for three seasons from 1970 to 1972 (37 50-minute episodes plus one unshown) covered a government department that worked to combat technological and environmental disasters.