Charles E. Brown (20 January 1896, Wimbledon, London - 9 October 1982, Storrington, West Sussex, UK) was a commercial aviation photographer working for United Kingdom newspapers, the aviation industry and a freelance commercial photographer with official accreditation as a war correspondent.] His aviation archive of 30,000 images has been preserved at the RAF Museum, Hendon since 1978.Born in 1896, his father Edward James Brown was a butcher with premises situated in Arthur Road, Wimbledon. For his 14th birthday he was given a small camera and in 1911 captured am image of a Balloon landing in Southfields, London. The photography of an Edwardian gentleman balloonist in trouble was published in the Daily Mirror and the newspaper paid Charles Brown a fee of a half-guinea. The art-editor of the Daily Mirror, Hannen Swaffer asked Charles Brown to consider a career in newspaper photography when he left school and he joined aged 16 to learn how to develop film and print photographs in the in-house Daily Mirror darkrooms under the guidance of Bernard Alferi.n 1915 Charles Brown applied for a posting to the Photographic Section of the Royal Naval Air Service and was turned down. After continuing to work on photographic assignments for the Daily Mirror in the United Kingdom, he was eventually drafted to the 532nd Agricultural Depot, Royal Engineers as a medical orderly based at Wrexham, Wales. After passing a trade test in photography with the Royal Engineers on 10 August 1918, further work photographic occurred with the Royal Air Force at their official London Photographic Centre. Leaving military service on 17 January 1919 and rejoining his pre-war colleagues at the Daily Mirror newspaper.