Born Nora Ratcliff Blakesley, the daughter of a merchant, she was educated at Ashby-de-la-Zouch Girls' Grammar School and at Saint Felix School, Southwold before going up to Newnham College, Cambridge to study English graduating in 1935.
In the same year, she married Richard William David (died 1993) with whom she had two sons and two daughters.
She was raised to the life peerage as Baroness David, of Romsey in the City of Cambridge, on 28 April 1978.
Her political interests included education, the environment, home affairs, and children.
On Wednesday 31 January 2007, she slipped and fell down an escalator on the Parliamentary Estate, and was subsequently rushed to hospital.