Sir Charles William Hayward, CBE KStJ (3 September 1892 – 3 February 1983) was an English businessman, investor, and philanthropist.
After the early death of his father in 1894, Hayward and his sister Marion Daisy were brought up by their maternal grandmother Sarah Ann Williams (née Patten), a locksmith 'employer at home', at Church Lane, Wolverhampton.
He founded Electric & General Industrial Trusts Ltd. which in turn led to the formation of the Firth Cleveland Group of Companies.
This eventually had 23 factories in the United Kingdom and operations in the Netherlands, West Germany, South Africa, and Australia.
In December 1972, Charles Hayward married secondly Elsie Darnell George, his business partner, the former Company Secretary of Firth Cleveland.