Charles Gore was one of eight children – four sons and four daughters – of Richard Benjamin Gore, who was curator of the Colonial Museum in Wellington, Government Meteorological Observer and Statistician, and Secretary to the Geological Survey Department, the New Zealand Institute and the Wellington Philosophical Society.

[1] His brothers Arthur and Ross were, like him, first-class cricketers.

A free-scoring batsman who sometimes opened the innings, and a fine fieldsman,[2] Charles Gore played in the New Zealand cricket team's first first-class match, against the touring New South Wales team in 1893–94.

[3] He made his highest score of 57 when he and Arnold Williams added 137 for the fourth wicket for Wellington against Canterbury in 1896–97.

[4] A popular member of sporting and social circles in Wellington, he worked in the Crown Lands Office.