Charles Bray (31 January 1811 – 5 October 1884) was a prosperous British ribbon manufacturer, social reformer, philanthropist, philosopher, and phrenologist.

A disciple of the social reformer Robert Owen, he used the wealth generated from his businesses to establish nonsectarian public schools and to try to bring about changes in society.

[2] He held that the universe is ruled by a power appearing as "Light, Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, Chemical Affinity, Attraction and Repulsions" and in total as "one simple, primordial, absolute Force.

People who participated in the "Rosehill Circle" included (among many others) social reformer Robert Owen, philosopher/sociologist Herbert Spencer, Harriet Martineau, and transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Charles Hennell was a writer on theological and philosophical topics whose most important work was An Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity (London, 1838).

On 1 November 1843 Charles C. Hennell married Elizabeth Rebecca "Rufa" Brabant (28 September 1811 – 1 March 1898), another core member of the Rosehill Circle.

Elizabeth, in the months immediately preceding her engagement and marriage to Charles Hennell, had been under commission (by a private group associated with the Rosehill Circle) to translate into English the great theological treatise Das Leben Jesu, kritisch bearbeitet by David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874).

Not surprisingly, the members of the private group which had commissioned the translation, led by the radical politician Joseph Parkes (1796–1865), were very eager to be able to read this great work in their native English.

Mary Anne had quickly become an integral part of the Rosehill Circle after she met and befriended Charles and Caroline Hennell in November 1841.