Berry was born in Bath on March 24, 1935, and judged The Great British Bake Off on the BBC from 2010 to 2016, according to her Wikipedia biography. PBS describes her as the author of more than 70 books and aired her special Mary Berry’s Ultimate Christmas in the United States in December 2022. Yet the question many readers type into Google is simpler: who are the people in the family photos behind the cookbook covers?
This article covers each child, the grandchildren, her husband Paul Hunnings, and the places where reliable sources disagree. It also flags a problem readers run into online: some low-quality pages give her children the wrong names.
Mary Berry’s Children at a Glance
Mary Berry and her husband, Paul Hunnings, have three children, according to Hello!, Distractify, and NationalWorld. Here is how those outlets describe each one.
- Thomas Hunnings: tree surgeon and arborist based in Oxfordshire
- Annabel Hunnings (named as Annabel Bosher in one photo caption): cook who worked with her mother on the Mary Berry & Daughter range
- William Hunnings: died in a car crash in January 1989, aged 19
Thomas is often called Tom, and Berry herself called William Will when she spoke about him in her BBC documentary.
Birth years are less settled. Hello! gives 1969 for Thomas, and NationalWorld gives 1972 for Annabel, but the same NationalWorld piece also lists William as born in 1969. That would put two sons in one year with no mention of twins, so the dates are best treated as unconfirmed until the family states them.
How Mary Berry and Paul Hunnings Started a Family
Berry married Paul John March Hunnings in 1966, when she was 31, as Distractify reports. Hello! adds that he proposed three times before she said yes. On her BBC show Mary Berry Everyday, she joked that she remembers the first proposal and thinks he was drunk.
Hello! also notes that Berry made her own wedding cake, and it has published resurfaced photos of her in a wedding dress that cost only £5.
Starting a family was not simple for the couple. Mashed reports a rocky beginning that involved seeing a specialist, after which they had their three children.
Berry kept working through those years. According to Wikipedia, her first book, The Hamlyn All Colour Cookbook, appeared in 1970. Distractify adds that her fame kept growing through the 1970s and 1980s, which were the years her children were growing up.
She has shared photos from that era herself. Hello! describes 1970s pictures she posted on Instagram of herself showing Annabel, Thomas, and William how to bake, including one dated 1977.
The Children One by One
1. Thomas Hunnings, the Tree Surgeon
Thomas, known as Tom, has taken the quietest path of the three. Distractify and Hello! both say he works as a tree surgeon, and Distractify places that work in Oxfordshire.
He works outside food and television. One documented public appearance came on October 12, 2012, when he stood with his parents and sister at Windsor Castle after Berry received her CBE, according to a Getty photo caption that NationalWorld published.
The sources reviewed for this article confirm nothing about Thomas’s own household, so none is described here. Readers should treat claims about his spouse or home life on lesser-known sites with caution.
2. Annabel Hunnings, the Cook in the Family
Annabel went the other way. Hello! says she followed her mother into cooking, and NationalWorld reports that the two sold chutneys, salad dressing, and sauces under the Mary Berry & Daughter name in major supermarkets.
Distractify describes her as stepping into the family business and partnering with her mother. She has appeared beside Berry at public events, including a red carpet photographed for that outlet. Her work is also the one publicly linked to her mother’s name.
Annabel was also in the car during the 1989 crash. Mashed reports she came away with a few scratches. Her family name appears as Bosher in the Getty caption from the 2012 CBE ceremony, though the sources reviewed do not explain the change.
3. William Hunnings and the 1989 Car Crash
William, called Will by his family, died in January 1989 at the age of 19. Mashed reports that he died instantly in a car crash and that his sister Annabel, who was also in the car, survived.
Berry has described the weekend in The Mary Berry Story, a BBC documentary. William had not been home for a few weekends, she said, so she cooked roast lamb, his favorite. Hello! reports that she told him the meal was for him, with Annabel and Tom there too.
That same weekend, William died. Distractify reports that Berry and Paul rushed to say goodbye. In the documentary, Berry said it felt right to see him one last time and spoke of how peaceful and beautiful he looked.
Her account is striking for its ordinariness. She does not open with the loss. She opens with the shopping, the lamb, and the question Will asked as he came through the door.
Mashed calls his death the event that affected her most. Berry spoke about it on screen in the documentary, and outlets have returned to her account many times since. The sources reviewed do not describe the road or circumstances of the crash beyond what is stated here, and this article does not speculate.
Mary Berry’s Grandchildren
Berry has five grandchildren through Thomas and Annabel, according to Distractify, Hello!, and an Icon Publishing feature. Their names, ages, and birth years are not publicly confirmed in the sources reviewed.
Because both children have families of their own, the five grandchildren live in two households. The sources do not say how they divide between them, so this article does not assign numbers.
The Icon Publishing piece describes her kitchen as a place where the family, grandchildren included, gathers while the dogs keep warm. It is a small detail, but it matches the way Berry tells the William story, with a family meal at the center.
Several low-quality pages claim her son is named Alan or Paul and guess at the grandchildren’s ages. Those claims contradict Hello!, Distractify, and NationalWorld, which agree on Thomas, Annabel, and William, and the pages offer no sourcing for the alternative names.
The Career Behind the Family
Berry’s path into food started at school. Wikipedia says domestic science classes encouraged her; she studied catering and institutional management at college, and she moved to France at 21 to study at Le Cordon Bleu.
Not everything went smoothly. Mashed reports that she contracted polio as a teenager, which left a lasting mark on her left hand. It also reports that she was fired from Ideal Home magazine in her early career.
Her best-known television run came later. She judged The Great British Bake Off from its 2010 launch until 2016, when the show moved to Channel 4, according to Wikipedia. She then appeared in Britain’s Best Home Cook from 2018 to 2021, and her credits include Mary Berry’s Quick Cooking in 2019 and Mary Makes Christmas in 2024.
Her children were adults well before Bake Off began in 2010, and William had died more than two decades earlier. That timeline means the family details readers search for belong to a much earlier chapter than the shows they know her from.
Where the Family Tradition Comes From
Berry’s own parents shaped the household she grew up in. The Icon Publishing feature says her father, Alleyne, was a surveyor and planner who served as Mayor of Bath in 1952 and helped found the University of Bath.
Her mother lived to 105 and died in 2011, according to the same feature.
Mary Berry’s Family in Public
The family’s public appearances are few and well documented. The clearest is the October 12, 2012 CBE ceremony at Windsor Castle, where Berry posed with Thomas, Paul, and Annabel, according to the Getty caption that NationalWorld reproduced.
Hello! also published a WPA Pool photo of Berry and Paul with their surviving children, and Distractify ran a red-carpet image of Berry and Annabel. Beyond those, the main windows into family life are Berry’s own interviews, her documentary, and the childhood photos she has posted.
In the United States, PBS carried her Christmas special, which it described as a walk through a three-course Christmas dinner. U.S.-based outlets such as Distractify and Mashed have run their own explainers on her children, which shows how much American interest there is.
How to Read Claims About Mary Berry’s Family
Searching for Berry’s children turns up three kinds of pages: outlets with named reporters and photo credits, aggregator pages that copy each other, and auto-generated pages that invent details.
The tell is consistency. Hello!, Distractify, NationalWorld, and Mashed agree on the three first names, on William’s death in 1989 at 19, and on Thomas’s and Annabel’s careers. The invented pages disagree with those outlets and with each other, naming a son Alan in one place and Paul in another. One page even describes Annabel as Berry’s sister, when every reliable outlet calls her Berry’s daughter.
Birth years, grandchildren’s names, and anyone’s marital status deserve extra caution. The reviewed outlets either disagree on them or say nothing, and no family statement was found. Anything about Thomas’s or Annabel’s finances, relationships, or home addresses is outside what this article will repeat.
Mary Berry and Paul Hunnings Today
Berry and Paul have been married since 1966, and Hello! now puts the marriage at 60 years. Berry is 91, according to Wikipedia, and Hello! has reported on how life changed for the couple after a painful injury, giving Paul’s age as 91.
Hello! also reports that Berry has been awarded a BAFTA Fellowship, an honor given for an exceptional contribution to television. The outlet’s coverage still lists her as a mother of three and grandmother of five.
Berry’s family keeps appearing in her work, from Instagram throwbacks to Christmas specials, and the details above reflect reporting available in 2026.
What Makes the Hunnings Family Story Different
Many celebrity family stories sort into children who joined the business and children who stayed away. Berry’s three children cover both. Annabel entered her mother’s food line, Thomas chose trees, and William is remembered through the meal his mother cooked for him.
No source reviewed shows Thomas or Annabel fronting a television series. The family’s best-documented public moments are an investiture at Windsor Castle, a few red-carpet photos, and a documentary in which Berry did the talking.
For American viewers who know Berry from PBS, that is the useful context. The calm kitchen presence on screen belongs to a woman whose family story includes both a mother-daughter food business and a loss she has spoken about openly.
