Mary Berry

About

Dame Mary Rosa Alleyne Hunnings (née Berry; born 24 March 1935) is an English food writer, chef, baker and television presenter. After being encouraged in domestic science classes at school, she studied catering at college. She then moved to France at the age of 22 to study at Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, before working in a number of cooking-related jobs.
Berry has published more than 75 cookery books, including her best-selling Baking Bible in 2009. Her first book was The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook in 1970. She hosted several television series for the BBC and Thames Television. Berry is an occasional contributor to Woman’s Hour and Saturday Kitchen. She was a judge on the television programme The Great British Bake Off from 2010 until 2016.

Berry was born on 24 March 1935, the second of three children, to Margaret (née Wilson; 1905–2011) and Alleyne William Steward Berry (1904–1989), a chartered surveyor and planner who served as Mayor of Bath in 1952 and was closely involved in establishing the University of Bath at Claverton Down. Mary’s great-great-grandfather on her father’s side, Robert Houghton, was a master baker in the 1860s who provided bread for a local…