Ethel Charlotte Chase Hatch was born as the youngest daughter of Evelyn and Edwin Hatch. Ethel had two sisters, being Beatrice and Evelyn Maud, the latter presumably being named after her mother. She also had a brother named Arthur Herbert Hatch (b. 1864), who was House Prefect at his school, Malvern College. p. 162. The family lived in a Gothic-style house built in 1867 on Banbury Road in Norham Gardens, North Oxford, England. The house was described as having "arched windows, a tower, and a turret complete with a statue niche towards the top." Neighborhood friends included Julia and Ethel Huxley, daughters of Thomas Henry Huxley and the aunts of Aldous Huxley. Other acquaintances in the neighbourhood who visited the Hatch family included Bonamy Price, Mark Pattison, and Benjamin Jowett.
