[1] McLaren married Jessie Reeve, daughter of a missionary and travelling secretary of the Christian Union, on 22 August 1911 at Alma Road Presbyterian Church in St Kilda.
He argued against emperor-worship in Japan in the 1930s and was imprisoned for eleven weeks at the outbreak of World War II before being interned and returned to Melbourne in November 1942.
[1] McLaren contested the 1949 federal election as an independent candidate for the seat of Melbourne, running against Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell on a platform of opposition to the White Australia policy; he received 3.6% of the vote.
He organised the John Fisher Williams Memorial Foundation in 1951, and later published The Christian Faith and the White Australia Policy.
[2] Charles' elder brother Samuel Bruce McLaren was an Adams Prize winning Professor of Mathematics who died during the Battle of the Somme.