Bonham-Carter was born in London on 2 April 1870, the son of the businessman and lawyer Henry Bonham Carter[a] and his wife Sibella Charlotte (née Norman).

[3] This was his only international appearance, but he continued playing rugby after leaving university, joining Blackheath, before turning out for invitational tourists the Barbarians in 1892.

[1] In Sudan, he had to devise an entirely new legal system, the criminal part of which was largely based on the Indian Penal Code.

He held the post, latterly also an Official Member of the Council of the Governor-General of the Sudan, until 1919, when he was appointed Senior Judicial Officer of Mesopotamia (later Iraq), newly under British Mandate after long being a part of the Ottoman Empire.

At the request of the family of Gertrude Bell he became honorary secretary of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, which he established on a firm basis.