Charles Swainson (naturalist)

Charles Swainson (1840–1913) M.A. was an English cleric and naturalist. He was rector of High Hurst Wood, Sussex, from 1872 to 1874, from where he published his Handbook of Weather Folk-Lore which also included folklore and mythology relating to elements of nature and a short chapter on birds.

As Rector of St Luke's, Old Charlton, Kent, from 1874 to 1908, he published his best-known and most influential work, Provincial Names and Folk-Lore of British Birds, which collected the vernacular and regional names of British birds together with an array of British and European folklore related to birds. The 1885 edition (Provincial Names and Folk-Lore...) was published within the Dialect Society's blue cover papers, and the 1886 edition (The Folk-Lore and Provincial Names...), with the title slightly changed for emphasis, was published in the Folk-Lore Society's brown cloth covers.

Charles Swainson has been confused with his relative William Swainson, a zoologist and ornithologist after whom several species of birds were named (e.g. Swainson's thrush), and with Charles Anthony Swainson, a theologian.