 Sudeley was a younger son of Thomas Hanbury-Tracy, 2nd Baron Sudeley, and his wife Emma Eliza Alicia Dawkins-Pennant, daughter of George Hay Dawkins-Pennant, of Penrhyn Castle.Sudeley entered the House of Commons for Montgomery in 1863, a seat he held until 1877 when he succeeded in the barony on the death of his elder brother.He served under William Ewart Gladstone as a Lord-in-waiting (government whip in the House of Lords) from 1880 to 1885 and as Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms from February to July 1886.