Charles Upfold (15 December 1834 – 14 March 1919), Justice of the Peace (9 September 1887), was an English soap manufacturer of great prominence in Australia.

Charles appears on the UK 1851 Census Return, with his parents and married sister Eliza Knight at 11 Brandon Street, parish of St.Mary Newington, London, (then in Surrey), where he is described as a "soap maker".

Upfold's company called for tenders for the building of a new works costing £50,000, and the installation of machinery valued at a further £83,000, on a twenty two acres site at Port Waratah, close to the Ferndale Colliery at Tighe's Hill, whence cheap coal was expected.

A journalist wrote in 1886: "A representative of this journal called at the Tighe's Hill Soap Works on Saturday last to see what progress was being made.

Preparations are in full swing for exhibiting the works in the fullest manner on the occasion of Lord & Lady Carrington's visit.

As the name implies, the registered office, along with a smaller factory at Botany, was at Sydney, the capital city of the colony, but the biggest works by far were at Tighes Hill, Newcastle.

In the 1888 Official Post Office Directory for New South Wales, Newcastle District, (p. 424), there appears "Upfold, Charles, soap factory".

On 6 April 1895 the Newcastle Morning Herald carried a large article entitled "Departure of Mr Charles Upfold – Citizen's Send-off".

Charles was about to depart for England, Europe and America, and a large function was given in his honour at the Centennial Hotel in Newcastle, with an impressive guest list of local worthies.

[5] He returned from that overseas trip at the end of September and another large article describing his tour appeared in the same newspaper on 3 October 1895.

In 1898 his son, Robert Wallace Upfold, now manager of the soap & candle factory, was married to Clara, daughter of John Scholey, (a local landowner and colliery proprietor from Leeds; described in the 1901 Federal Directory as a "gentleman").

[7] The late professor John Turner wrote: "the modern technology and large scale of the Sydney Soap and Candle Company made it the outstanding industrial establishment of its kind.

Upfold had wide experience of colonial conditions and constructed his Port Waratah works on recent British and American lines, in a location which gave unequalled access to tallow and coal."

[1] On 2 September 1899 he left Sydney on board the Oceanic Steamship Company's RMS Alameda for Samoa to arrange for purchases of shipments of copra.

[23] Charles Upfold built a large mansion on a piece of land in Crebert Street, North Waratah (now Mayfield), given to him by his friend John Scholey.

Charles Upfold subsequently purchased a small estate, 'Orange Grove', near Raymond Terrace, containing extensive orchards, vineyards, and a dairy farm,[24] where he built another fine country residence.

Upfold was buried in the Congregational section of the Gore Hill Cemetery, Sydney, his funeral service was conducted by a Church of England minister, Rev.