He was educated at the National Schools, Marlborough Street, where he received musical instruction from John W. Glover.
He attended O'Connell School in North Richmond Street and often sang in the monastery chapel.
He sang for a time in the choir of St. Paul's Church, Arran Quay, with Mr. J. J. Fagan, his life-long friend.
He sang in University Church where Alban Croft was the organist and where he met Signor Cellini who gave him lessons.
A prototype telephone carried the performance to Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin, half a mile away, where an astonished audience was able to hear the singers and orchestra.
[3] He sang Claude Frollo in Goring Thomas's Esmeralda at Drury lane in 1883 and took part in the first performance of Mackenzie's Colomba (5 April 1883).
Wagner was in London when Ludwig was singing with Carl Rosa, but definite evidence of their meeting has proved elusive.
He had singers, pipers, harpists and dancers and "songs of love and war, keenes and lullabies".
It is a just tribute to one of the greatest singers Ireland ever produced to say, at this point, that William Ludwig was a supreme artist.
His last public performance was in the Theatre Royal, Dublin, with the Carl Rosa Company where he recreated the role of Danny Mann in Lily of Killarney.
He did appear in the Abbey Theatre on 1 February 1911 in a special performance of act 2 of Wagner's 'Flying Dutchman'.
The money raised was used to buy him an annuity which allowed him to live out his days in modest circumstances.
The Ludwig Cup is awarded annually by the Royal Irish Academy of Music.
The centenary of the 1916 Rising threw up the following fact: Ludwig — of whom I heard a great deal in Limerick — was in Dublin last week.
Since I was a schoolboy I can only recollect tears flowing from me once — that was when I heard of my father's death in Portland.
Ludwig dragged them out of me once again in singing "General Monroe" — the pathos he put into portions of that was marvellous.
But ‘tis disgraceful to find such a singer and of such songs so badly patronised by Irishmen in Dublin.