Constituency : Camborne 1885-95
Charles took the new seat of Camborne standing as an "Independent Liberal" and defeating the official Liberal Arthur Vivian who had been MP for West Cornwall by 349 votes . He was attacked as a "carpet bag politician" and "the Hottest of the Red-Hot Political Agitators " by the local press.
Charles was a barrister's son from London. He was educated at Tonbridge School and Oxford. He worked at Manchester Grammar School for a couple of years and then became a barrister. In 1882 he sued the World magazine over an article which criticised him as over-litigious and called him an "ill-mannered, cross-grained splutterer". He lost the action.
In 1886 Charles introduced a Bill to prevent the sale of liquor to children but excluded Ireland under pressure from his Nationalist allies.
In 1886 Charles was re-elected as an official Liberal candidate.
In 1887 Charles challenged the appointment of Prince Louis of Battenberg as executive officer on the Dreadnought.
Charles was a supporter of Keir Hardie and in 1888 following Hardie's dismal showing in the West Lanarkshire by-election, he joined Hardie's Scottish Labour Party as an allied member. In 1889 he warned the Commons that the precarious living conditions of the working classes could lead to a revolution.
In 1889 Charles was arrested and imprisoned in Derry Gaol for three months for feeding evicted tenants in Donegal which was illegal under the 1887 Irish Coercion Act. He complained abut the insanitary conditions particularly the lice.
Charles presented a Bill for universal suffrage in 1889.
Charles took up the cause of Cornish miners and became known as the "Miners' Friend".
Charles was a member of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage. He was married to the suffragist Florence Strauss.
Charles was defeated in 1895 and failed to get back in at St Helens in 1900 and Horncastle in 1910.
Charles visited Argentina in 1914.
He died of a stroke in 1919 aged 65.
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