Anthony Coburn was an Australian United Kingdom. After initially working as a butcher's assistant in his native Australia, he turned to writing and in the 1950s moved to the UK, where he joined the staff of BBC Television. It was while working as a staff writer for the BBC that he became involved in the early development of a new science_fiction series called Doctor Who in 1963.

He liaised closely with the series' first Story Editor, David Whitaker, on establishing the format and characters of the show, which had been initiated by various BBC drama executives before being handed on to the new production team. It is believed to have been Coburn's idea for the TARDIS to externally resemble a police box, the thought apparently having come to him after taking a walk near his office and spotting such a box on the street. It was also his idea for the Doctor's travelling companion, Susan, to be his granddaughter, as he was disturbed by the possible sexual connotations of an old man travelling with a teenager if they were unrelated.

Coburn wrote two full serials for the programme, 100,000 BC and The Robots (also known as The Masters of Luxor). Although of these only 100,000 BC was produced, it was the first ever Doctor Who serial to be made, despite both Coburn and the production team's misgivings about its prehistoric settings. The Robots was continually delayed and put back in production order, and then finally rejected - following this, Coburn severed his links with the show. This set of scripts was eventually published by Titan Books as The Masters of Luxor in the 1990s, as part of their series of Doctor Who script books.

During his work on Doctor Who Coburn had left the staff of the BBC and become a freelancer. In this capacity he would work on many more television productions for the next decade, as both a writer and producer. In the early 1970s he created and produced the popular BBC drama series Warship, set on board a Royal Navy vessel.

Coburn died of a heart attack in 1978.