Barbara Proctor Beauchamp was born in 1909, and brought up in France and Switzerland. She had a younger brother and sister, twins, who both died in early adulthood.

Before World War Two Barbara Beauchamp was a freelance journalist and the author of three novels. In 1939, living in London, she joined the ATS, and Wine of Honour (1945) was her first novel since the outbreak of war.

After the war she continued to live in London, with her partner Norah C. James, a fellow novelist. In later life she shared a house with Millicent Dewar, a renowned psychoanalyst.

Barbara Beauchamp wrote three further novels after Wine of Honour, the last published in 1958. She died in London in 1974.