Charles Cowan FRSE (7 June 1801 – 1889) was a Scottish politician and paper-maker.

He was born in Charlotte Street in Edinburgh on 7 June 1801, the son of Alexander Cowan, papermaker and philanthropist, and Elizabeth Hall, daughter of George Hall a merchant in Crail in Fife.

[3] In May 1819, he was sent to learn the papermaking trade at St Mary Cray, Kent, where he worked at either Lay's or Hall's mill on the River Cray.

[4] In the general election of June 1847, he ran as a Radical free-trade candidate in Edinburgh, defeating the incumbent Whig Thomas Babington Macaulay.

[6] He died at Wester Lea, a villa in Murrayfield, Edinburgh on 29 March 1889.