He was educated at
Charterhouse School and
The Queen's College, Oxford, and then served in the
Highland Light Infantry. After the death of his father, he took over management of Lea & Perrins. His father had also been a director of
Royal Worcester Porcelain Factory and Charles followed him, becoming a director in 1891. He became chairman in 1901 and supported the factory financially. He bought the company outright in 1934 and ensured its continuity from his own fortune until it could be taken public in 1954. In 1927, he purchased the Royal Worcester Porcelain Factory's historic ceramics collection for a price above market value to assist the firm's cashflow. In 1946, he established the Perrins Trust to unite the factory museum collection and his own private holdings of Royal Worcester and ensure their survival. After his death, his widow established the "Dyson Perrins Museum" at the factory site to house the collection. It is now called "The
Museum of Royal Worcester" (previously "Worcester Porcelain Museum"). Perrins lived in
Malvern for most of his life, and amongst his many charitable deeds in
Worcestershire was the endowment of
Dyson Perrins Church of England Academy in Malvern. He served as
Mayor of Worcester for 1897–98 and as
High Sheriff of Worcestershire for 1899–1900. He was a major benefactor of the
Royal Grammar School, Worcester and endowed new buildings including Perrins Hall (1914) named after his father, an
old boy. The school organ is in this building and is played regularly at assemblies. He became a
Six Master and chairman of the governors of that school until the 1950s. His portrait by A. Hacker (1907) hangs in the hall. In
Oxford, he funded the building of the
Dyson Perrins Laboratory, which was the main centre for research into organic chemistry at
Oxford University from its foundation in 1916 until its retirement as a laboratory in 2003. He received an honorary
DCL from
Oxford University. During Perrins's life, he amassed one of the most important book collections in the world, particularly strong in medieval
illuminated manuscripts and printed ballads. To help finance and re-establish the Royal Worcester factory after
World War II, he decided to sell his important collection of early printed books, and they were mostly dispersed in a series of sales at
Sotheby's in
London in 1946 and 1947. His illuminated manuscripts and other remaining printed books were sold after his death in three major auction sales in 1958 to 1960. A record total for a single collection of £1,100,000 was raised by these sales. Items once owned by C. W. Dyson Perrins now form the basis of many other prominent collections, such as the
Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection now in the
Library of Congress. Many other items from his collection were given or bequeathed by him to public institutions such as the
Victoria and Albert Museum, the
National Gallery, the
Ashmolean Museum,
Winchester Cathedral library, and the
British Museum. For example, his
Mughal manuscript the
Emperor Akbar's Khamsa of Nizami is now in the
British Library and
Palestrina by
J. M. W. Turner is in the
National Gallery. ==Family==