Charles Aitken CB (12 September 1869 – 9 August 1936) was a British art administrator and was the third Keeper of the Tate Gallery (1911–1917) and the first Director (1917–1930).

[1] He had two elder sisters including Rosa, former student of Girton College and teacher à North London Collegiate School, and Edith Aitken who would becoming a leading headteacher in South Africa.

Sir John Rothenstein described Aitken as "an ordinary man: his intelligence was relatively pedestrian, his powers of self-expression scarcely adequate".

[3] When one of the greatest collections of the works of William Blake came on the open market, Aitken, who had no purchasing budget, put together a consortium to save it.

After Aitken commissioned Rex Whistler to decorate the Tate's Refreshment Room with a mural, The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats, he persuaded Sir Joseph Duveen, an influential art dealer, to finance a similar scheme.