Born to Samuel Charlton and his wife Mary Ann (née Pickering) Charlton on 28 June 1849, in Bamburgh, Northumberland, he received his first lessons in drawing from his father when he was only three or four years old, and within a few years was drawing horses with some skill.
The late 1870s and 1880s were a very busy time for British and colonial forces as they tried to consolidate colonial hold over possessions in northern and southern Africa.