Charles Freer Andrews (12 February 1871 – 5 April 1940) was an Anglican priest and Christian missionary, educator and social reformer, and an activist for Indian independence.

Andrews was a pupil at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and afterwards read Classics at Pembroke College, Cambridge,[1] ultimately being awarded the Carus Greek Testament Prize in 1895.

In 1904 he joined the Cambridge Mission to Delhi and arrived there to teach philosophy at St. Stephen's College, where he grew close to many of his Indian colleagues and students.

Arriving in January 1914, he met the 44-year-old Gujarati lawyer, Mohandas Gandhi, who was leading the Indian community's efforts against the racial discrimination and police legislation that infringed their civil liberties.

Andrews served as Gandhi's aide in his negotiations with General Jan Smuts and was responsible for finalizing some of the finer details of their interactions.

[4] Following the advice of several Indian Congress leaders and of Principal Susil Kumar Rudra, of St. Stephen's College, Andrews was instrumental in persuading Gandhi to return to India with him in 1915.

[6] He accompanied Gandhi to the second Round Table Conference in London, helping him to negotiate with the British government on matters of Indian autonomy and devolution.

The ex-indentured labourers and their descendants wanted him to help them overcome a new type of slavery, by which they were bound to the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, which controlled all aspects of their lives.

So from 1935 onwards Andrews began to spend more time in Britain, teaching young people all over the country about Christ's call to radical discipleship.

The Dinabandhu Andrews College was constituted with an aim of disseminating higher education to a huge number of children of the displaced persons from erstwhile East Pakistan, presently Bangladesh.

In 1948, Joseph John, pastor in Katpadi, was so inspired by Gandhis and Andrews‘ ideas, that he left his ministry to serve the poor and casteless in a remote area in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh and founded a village/ Rural Life Centre, which he called Deenabandupuram.

In 2024, it was announced that Newcastle City Council plans to install a plaque at 14 Brunel Terrace, the birthplace of Andrews, to commemorate his life.