Her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston (21 November 1889 – 16 October 1980), was a British subject born in Auschitz, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He was the son of Victor John George Ruston, of British and Austrian background and Anna Wels, who was of Austrian origin and born in Kovarce. In 1923–1924, Joseph had been an Honorary British Consul in Semarang in the Dutch East Indies, and prior to his marriage to Hepburn's mother, he had been married to Cornelia Bisschop, a Dutch heiress. Although born with the surname Ruston, he later double-barrelled his name to the more "aristocratic" Hepburn-Ruston, perhaps at Ella's insistence, as he mistakenly believed himself descended from James Hepburn, third husband of Mary, Queen of Scots.