Piano, Vaudeville, and Motherhood - Barbara Ward Wells

Updated on: August 11, 2025

Table of Contents

Basic Information

Field	Details
Full name	Barbara Ward Wells (born Barbara Ward Morris)
Birth	25 July 1910 (Chertsey, Surrey)
Death	19 December 1984
Known for	Pianist, music-hall performer, piano teacher; mother of actress/singer Julie Andrews
First marriage	Edward Charles “Ted” Wells — married 26 December 1932
Later marriage	Married a tenor known in family records as Ted Andrews (performed together)
Children	Julie Andrews (Julia Elizabeth Wells), born 1 October 1935
Grandchildren	Emma Walton Hamilton (b. 1962), Amelia (Amy) Edwards (adopted 1974), Joanna Lynne Edwards (adopted 1975)
Public profile	Primarily known through family performance act and as the mother of Julie Andrews

Early Life & Family Origins

I like to picture Barbara as the kind of piano teacher whose hands carried two stories at once: the meticulous, patient motion of pedagogy and the quicksilver showmanship demanded by the music hall. Born Barbara Ward Morris on 25 July 1910 in Chertsey, Surrey, she arrived into a Britain still finding its post-Victorian rhythm. Her parents — William Arthur (often recorded as Arthur) Morris and Julia Mary Morris/Ward in family trees — provided the kind of sturdy English backdrop that would shape her practical love for music and the practical decisions that followed.

Those early years read like the opening bars of a longer composition: steady, classical, with the occasional unexpected chord. Family life, parish records, and performing rosters of the era place her as a working pianist and teacher — the sort of person who could read sheet music in the dark and unlock a reluctant child’s fingers into a bright arpeggio. That skill would become the scaffolding for a touring life and a household that doubled as a small, traveling conservatory.

Marriage, the Touring Act, and Raising a Star

On 26 December 1932 Barbara married Edward Charles “Ted” Wells — that union is the thread that gave Julie her birth surname and anchored the household into the 1930s. By 1 October 1935 Julie (Julia Elizabeth Wells) was born in Walton-on-Thames, and the family story took a cinematic pivot: a child with a voice and a family with performance in its marrow.

Barbara later formed both a domestic and artistic partnership with a tenor known in family accounts as Ted Andrews — records and theatre circuits show the couple performing in a family/vaudeville act in which young Julie sang and learned the craft of stage life. Imagine a small troupe under gaslight: a pianist mother, a tenor father figure, and a radiant child learning how to turn a bow or take a breath at just the right moment. Touring meant numbers — long days, dozens of towns, the choreography of luggage and rehearsals — and it meant Julie’s earliest opportunities to stand in the spotlight.

The numbers tell their own quiet tale: Julie was born in 1935 and by childhood was already onstage with her mother and stepfather, which set a course that would lead from music hall bills to West End lights, and eventually to Hollywood and international stardom. Barbara’s role was both practical and formative: teacher, accompanist, manager of routines, keeper of schedules, and, most importantly, the adult who ensured a talented child learned discipline alongside applause.

Barbara Ward Wells

Career Snapshot: Pianist, Teacher, and Music-Hall Partner

Barbara’s public footprint reads modest but persistent — a working musician who taught piano, coached performers, and performed in music-hall and variety settings. Those were trades that paid in lessons, in theater bills, and in the slow accrual of reputation rather than flash. She toured, she accompanied, she taught — and in doing so she built the musical scaffolding for a daughter whose career would eclipse the family’s own modest fame.

Numbers and dates that matter here: born 1910, married first in 1932, mothered Julie in 1935, and remained involved in performance life through the mid-20th century until her death in 1984. Her public presence was always tethered to performance contexts and to her role within a family troupe rather than to solo celebrity.

Later Years, Family Branches, and Quiet Legacy

Barbara died on 19 December 1984 — but the music she helped shape kept moving through the decades. Julie Andrews’ children — Emma Walton Hamilton (born 1962) and later adoptees Amelia (Amy) Edwards (1974) and Joanna Lynne Edwards (1975) — became Barbara’s grandchildren, expanding the family tree into the world of publishing, theatre, and screen in various ways. Through Julie’s marriages and career, Barbara’s lineage connected to broader entertainment circles, including step-relations tied to Blake Edwards’ family, which further stitched that mid-century music-hall life into later Hollywood narratives.

Her legacy is modest and clean: not in bank statements or award cases, but in the living descendants and the professional arc of the woman she raised. A piano teacher’s true estate is often the ear she trained — the way a child learns phrasing, breath, and timing — and in Julie Andrews that training became something the world recognized instantly. That recognition, in my view, is the most theatrical of inheritances.

Timeline — Key Dates & Numbers

Year	Event
25 July 1910	Birth of Barbara Ward Morris (Chertsey, Surrey)
26 Dec 1932	Marriage to Edward Charles “Ted” Wells
1 Oct 1935	Birth of Julia Elizabeth Wells (Julie Andrews)
1962	Birth of granddaughter Emma Walton Hamilton
1974–1975	Adoption years for Amy (Amelia) Edwards and Joanna Lynne Edwards
19 Dec 1984	Death of Barbara Ward Wells

FAQ

Who was Barbara Ward Wells?

Barbara Ward Wells (born Barbara Ward Morris) was an English pianist, music-hall performer, and piano teacher, best known as the mother of Julie Andrews.