It was founded in May 1976, emerging from the Westfield College Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and the editors and readers of the fanzine Tardis.
Early activities included the establishment of a newsletter to promote fan communication through pen-pals and swaps, titled The Celestial Toyroom after the first episode of the story The Celestial Toymaker, and the establishment of a reference department to collate and circulate accurate information about the production and storyline of each Doctor Who episode, headed by Jeremy Bentham.
However, anxieties expressed by the production office and the BBC's legal department about the reproduction of copyright material contributed towards the introduction of a membership fee with effect from January 1978.
Late 1977 saw the emergence of the DWAS's fiction magazine, Cosmic Masque, edited initially by John Peel and Steven Roy Evans (writer).
The advent of Marvel's Doctor Who Weekly in October 1979 led to changes as Bentham became its principal feature writer, and resigned as head of the reference department.
Membership fell for a period in the early 1980s – recorded at 1820 in the August 1981 Celestial Toyroom, it had fallen to 1000 by November 1982 – but then began an upturn, reaching 1175 by March 1983, and 1550 by December.
The rise was probably helped by the DWAS's presence at the BBC-run Doctor Who convention held at Longleat, Wiltshire, in March 1983.
During the early 1980s Celestial Toyroom remained a brief monthly newsletter, with Tardis (which moved to quarterly publication in 1983) being the main forum of articles and letters.
Developments in the late 1980s included a decline in membership, perhaps due to the evolution of Marvel's Doctor Who Magazine into a more fan-based publication.
Rival services also appeared, such as DWB for monthly news, The Whonatics or the MLG for local gatherings, and Phoenix for conventions.
Failure to register for VAT led to a crisis in the Society's finances in the late 1980s, but the DWAS recovered from this to survive as the core grouping of Doctor Who fandom in the UK.
These have included some organised with the cooperation of BBC Worldwide (and before that 2Entertain), most notably a full advance screening of the Day of the Daleks DVD Special Edition in 2011.
From 1997 until his death in 2011, the Society's honorary president was Nicholas Courtney, who played the hugely popular recurring character Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart on the series from 1968 to 1989.
In 2014, DWAS raised funds for a blue heritage plaque erected at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith in memory of the show's first producer Verity Lambert.
This was unveiled by her friend and well known director Waris Hussein at a special free-to-enter event which included a big screen presentation of the BBC docu-drama An Adventure in Space and Time.
Alongside Celestial Toyroom was Cosmic Masque, a quarterly digital magazine, revived in Christmas 2015 for the 40th anniversary of the Society in 2016.
All of the annuals can be downloaded from www.dwasonline.co.uk are of free of charge TARDIS was the Society's original fan magazine although in fact, it predated the formation of DWAS first being published in early 1976.
Further events took place in 2023 and 2024 with a one day event planned for 2025 In 1995, the Doctor Who Appreciation Society produced and sold a collection of Doctor Who audio adventures entitled Cosmic Fugue, a spin-off from DWAS's fiction magazine, Cosmic Masque, edited and produced by Jonathan Way and Steven Wickham.
The collection was presented by Louise Jameson and the individual stories were read by former Doctor Who stars with additional voices being provided by Nicola Quinn and Steven Wickham.