Constituency : Ashburton 1910, Accrington 1922-3, Elland 1929-31 ( Labour )
Charles reversed the by-election gain of 1908, unseating the Liberal Unionist Ernest Morrison-Bell.
Charles was the son of the former King's Lynn MP Thomas Buxton and younger brother of Noel, MP for Poplar. He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge. He was private secretary to his father as Governor of South Australia in the 1890s. He became a barrister. He was also Principal at Morley College, an adult education school and edited the Albany Review from 1906 to 1908. He stood for Hertford in 1906 and at the by-election in 1908. He became a Quaker on marriage in 1904.
Charles was defeated in December 1910 as Morison-Bell regained the seat.
Charles was Honourable Secretary to the Land Enquiry Committee from 1912 to 1914.
In 1914 Charles was shot by a Turk on a clandestine visit to Bulgaria to try and maintain Bulgarian neutrality but survived.
Charles was a founder member of the Union for Democratic Control and in 1917 left the Liberals for the Independent Labour Party. He visited the Soviet Union in 1920 and was impressed, publishing In A Russian Village in 1922. He sent a message of support to Asquith's opponent in 1920.
Charles stood for Labour at Accrington in 1918 coming third. In 1922 he had a convincing victory there but lost to the liberal Hugh Edwards when the Conservatives withdrew in 1923. Edwards held on as a Constitutionalist in 1924. Charles switched to Elland in 1929 and held the seat but was defeated in a straight fight with the Conservative in 1931. He came close to re-taking it in 1935.
Charles was Treasurer to the I.L.P. from 1924 to 1927. He travelled widely in Africa and helped to shape Labour's colonial policy. He became Parliamentary Adviser to the Labour Party in 1926,
Charles favoured appeasement right up to the outbreak of war and resigned his post in 1939.
He died in 1942 aged 67, leaving most of his estate to charity rather than his two children.
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