Bonham Carter was born in Golders Green, London. Her mother, Elena (née Propper de Callejón), is a psychotherapist. Her father, Raymond Bonham Carter, was a merchant banker and the alternate UK director representing the Bank of England at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. during the 1960s; he came from a famous British political family, being the son of Maurice Bonham Carter and Violet Bonham Carter, Baroness Asquith of Yarnbury (whose father was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, H. H. Asquith). Bonham Carter's maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was of half Spanish and half Jewish ancestry, and served as a diplomat and former Minister-Counsellor at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C. Bonham Carter's Jewish maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was the daughter of Baron Eugène Fould-Springer (a French-born banker who was a cousin of Achille Fould), and Mitzi Springer (whose father was the industrialist Baron Gustav Springer).