 In 1884 aged 20 she married Hugh F. Locke King, and they settled at Weybridge, Surrey.At first they farmed the estate, but, with her husband's interest in motor racing, they built the Brooklands race-track.Ethel Locke King ran a Red Cross hospital at her estate, Brooklands House, during World War I from 1915 until 1919 and organised the Voluntary Aid Detachment in Surrey in 12 hospitals, mainly in houses belonging to her husband.