Ludworth was born in the Blyth Rural District of East Suffolk to an English father and an Irish mother and grew up in Hampshire.

[1][2] On a scholarship, she attended the independent Portsmouth High School.

[3] Ludford was created a life peer as Baroness Ludford, of Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington on 30 September 1997,[4] after serving as a Councillor for the London Borough of Islington 1991–99.

[7] A longstanding opponent of capital punishment, Baroness Ludford has been pressing European drug companies not to supply executioners in the United States with sedatives.

[11] She was married to Steve Hitchins, Leader of Islington Borough Council (2000–06),[12][13] until his death in September 2019.