The world of dance has lost an archetype in Bobbie Irvine, renowned for her inimitable style, humour and dignity. She was born in South Africa where, among the upper middle classes, the ability to dance was a highly regarded social skill. The young Bobbie Barwell was spotted by Bill Irvine, a competitive dancer from a Scottish mining family from Low Craigends in Kilsyth. He brought her to Britain and together they dominated the dance scene for the second half of the 20th century, first in competitions and then in teaching and adjudicating from their school at the Starlight in Streatham, South London.

Winning 13 world titles between 1960 and 1968, Bobbie transcended the decline of ballroom dancing in Britain. As dance halls became bingo halls and Come Dancing helped transform the world she loved into a caricature of its former self, she continued to demand perfect technique and posture from her pupils. With her trademark white streak in her dark hair, her love of good chocolate and small dogs, she was the antithesis of everything ballroom dancing came to represent in Britain, maintaining an aura of glamour and effortless elegance in herself and those around her through pure determination and hard work.

She rarely revealed much about herself, even to close friends, but behind the reserve was a woman who was easily hurt. Bill Irvine told much of her story in his autobiography, The Dancing Years.

Appropriately perhaps, Bobbie Irvine was born in the ostrich-feather town of Oudtshoorn. But there was little else about her beginnings that pointed towards her future career. Her father, an executive with Shell, was expecting a boy, whom he planned to name Robert after an eminent naval ancestor. Her older brother was named Emmot. When a girl emerged her parents, not liking the name Roberta, christened her Bobbie.

She was given tap and ballet lessons and made her stage debut at three, performing a tap dance while singing Animal Crackers in my Soup, and she remembered these steps all her life. She was already obsessed with dancing. Her father told her that dance was “no kind of career” and, in an attempt to make her study, her father sent her to the strict Irish Catholic Loreto convent in Somerset Strand. But even the nuns despaired. One declared: “You’ll either have to be a dancer or marry a rich man, because you’re going to be no good at anything else.”

In Scotland, her future husband had already begun his career as a butcher’s assistant. But like Bobbie, all Bill Irvine really wanted to do was dance. He became known for practising his waltz, quickstep and foxtrot behind his delivery van, drawn by a horse called Doodles.

Unable to find the right partner in England because they were all too “heavy”, Bill Irvine met Bobbie after he accepted an invitation to work for John Wells and Renee Sissons, former champions, in their school in Johannesburg. His teacher, Henry Jacques, told him he was seeking a “ghost in skirts”. He saw Bobbie win her first South African championship in the arms of her partner Vernon Ballantyne. She had taken up ballroom dancing after a brief career in modelling.

Her father, who had opposed her career choices, was swayed after she won her first competition. She and Ballantyne defeated Irvine and his partner Aida Kruger in the 1955 South African championship, and both couples were selected to compete in London against Britain and Australia. In England, both couples were defeated and both Kruger and Ballantyne decided to retire, throwing Bill and Bobbie together. They married in 1957 and decided to compete together.

At first it seemed their partnership would not work because Bobbie, at 5ft 6ins, was just two inches shorter than her husband, but she danced “tall” while he gave the impression of dancing “over”, with his hips back and chest forward. But they always looked good, won a succession of championships in South Africa and moved to England.

Their first world title in Berlin in 1960 came out of a political dispute in the dance world that still upsets some dancers today. The British couples, who would have been expected to win, had boycotted the championship in a controversy over how it was organised, leaving the field clear for the Irvines to take the title for South Africa. But just two years later they were dancing for Britain, challenging the supremacy of Bob Burgess and Doreen Freeman, and Peter Eggleton and Brenda Winslade.

They won their first British Championship in 1962 when the reigning title holders, Harry Smith-Hampshire and Doreen Casey, who had beaten them into second place in 1961, retired. Four days later, the Irvines were beaten by Burgess and Freeman at another event. But whenever they suffered a defeat, their attitude was to fight back and make sure they won next time.

They went on to establish themselves as supreme, winning three world titles in Latin as well as dozens of championships with the “modern” dances of waltz, foxtrot, tango, quickstep and Viennese waltz. Bobbie Irvine became one of the “lightest” dancers ever, prompting Henry Jacques to say to Bill: “I see you’ve found your ghost in skirts.” Their main teachers were Eric Hancox, Len Scrivenor and Sonny Binnick. Both were appointed MBE for services to dance in 1967.

Bobbie Irvine’s love of dance remained with her throughout her life. She never really retired. Throughout her battle with cancer, she did not stop teaching. She and some of her star pupils gave a memorable demonstration in Blackpool just a few years ago, an audience of dancers transfixed as the women danced feather-light foxtrots across the floor — all of them without partners, and all floating in time with the music, perfectly synchronised. For the younger dancers, who had never seen her compete, this display evoked all the mystery and beauty of an era in dance that had almost disappeared.

Bobbie Irvine was troubled by some of the new developments in technique, with style and subtlety being threatened by speed and drama and, in Latin in particular, separate dances becoming almost indistinguishable from each other except by the music.

Irvine never let the competing demands of judging and coaching affect her integrity, for which her students will never forget her. Those who are still teaching and dancing will ensure, if they can, that her flawless technique lives on.

She is survived by her husband, Bill. There were no children.

Bobbie Irvine, MBE, dancer, was born on July 27, 1932. She died of cancer on May 30, 2004, aged 71.