Peter Ludlow, 1st Earl Ludlow

Ludlow was the son of Peter Ludlow and Mary, daughter of John Preston, of Ardsalla, County Meath (of the Viscounts Gormanston). He was the grandson of Stephen Ludlow, who represented several constituencies in the Irish House of Commons, and the great-grandson of Henry Ludlow, brother of the Parliamentarian general Edmund Ludlow.[1]

In 1755 Ludlow, then aged only 25, was elevated to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Ludlow, of Ardsalla in the County of Meath.[2] Five years later he was further honoured when he was made Viscount Preston, of Ardsalla in the County of Meath, and Earl Ludlow, both in the Peerage or Ireland.[3] Lord Ludlow remained eligible to stand for election to the House of Commons and in 1768 he was returned for Huntingdonshire, a seat he would hold for the next 28 years.[4][5] In 1782 he was sworn of the Privy Council[6] and appointed Comptroller of the Household, a post he held until 1784.[1]

Lord Ludlow married Lady Frances, eldest daughter of Thomas Lumley-Saunderson, 3rd Earl of Scarbrough, in 1753. They had two sons and four daughters. They lived at Great Staughton Manor in Huntingdonshire.

He died in October 1803, aged 73, and was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son, Augustus. Ludlow's second son George, the third Earl, was a General in the British Army.[1]