Charles Dukes was born in London on 31 August 1803, but only baptised at St Matthew Bethnal Green, London on 29 April 1835, son of Thomas Dukes (died Stepney 24 May 1835) and his wife [H]Ester née Mann (died 1862), who married at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London on 30 August 1802. In 1841, Charles was living at 1 Turner Street, Commercial Road, Stepney with his c.55-year-old widowed mother Ester and in 1851, a 45[sic] year old unmarried artist, living at Camden Street, St Pancras, London, the home of 38-year-old picture dealer, William Edward Bates and his family.

A landscape and rustic genre painter working in London, his subjects are cottage or country scenes. He exhibited at the Royal Academy 1834-1864 also showing at the British Institution and the Royal Society of British Artists, from Commercial Chambers, Mincing Lane, London in 1829 and from various London addresses until his death. He also exhibited at the Suffolk Fine Arts Association at Ipswich in 1850, from 1 Eversholt Street, Hampstead Road, Hampstead, London when he had on show two oils, 'The Gipsy Mother' and 'The Golden Age'. Charles Dukes died at Chiswick, Middlesex on 9 September 1865.