Barbara Todd
Barbara Todd was born in England in 1927 and commenced her ballet training at seven years of age. She was taught the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus, and her teacher was impressed with her ability from the start. Barbara passed all her examinations with Honours, and also attained Honours in the Advanced examination, at the young age of fourteen.
From the age of fifteen, she attended classes at the Sadlers Wells Ballet School, now known as the Royal Ballet School, and at the age of seventeen she was accepted into the Royal Ballet Company. The company was based in Covent Garden, London, and she also toured with the company to France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Sweden, Italy and the United States. She remained in the company for six years, loving the life of working hard and dancing every day. Whilst in London, she met her future husband Murray, a New Zealander who was a scholar at Cambridge. She married him at the age of twenty-three, and they moved to Australia where Murray took up a university appointment at the Australian National University in Canberra.
In 1951, Barbara opened Canberra’s first ballet school, and she taught there for six years. When her husband was appointed Professor of English at the University of Tasmania, they moved to Tasmania and Barbara has lived in Hobart ever since.
Barbara became a widow in 1960, when Murray died suddenly of Leukaemia. By this time, Barbara was the mother of three little daughters. She needed to support herself and after the arrival of her parents in Hobart to assist with the care of her daughters, Barbara opened the Barbara Todd Ballet School in 1961.
Barbara had a large ballet school which had an excellent reputation. Students did exceptionally well in RAD exams and quite a few were accepted into the Australian Ballet School and Company, and other dance academies. Barbara sold her ballet school in 1997 to Jo Hills, and the school still bears her name.
Barbara is a Life Member of the Royal Academy of Dance.