Charlotte Epton [also known as Charlotte Bawden] was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England on 19 March 1902, the daughter of Robert Epton, a local solicitor. She studied at the Royal College of Art in London. Between 1927 and 1930 she worked with Bernard Leach at his pottery in St. Ives, Cornwall. Following a fire which destroyed much of her work, she left St. Ives and moved to Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, and taught drawing at Cheltenham Ladies College. She also worked with Michael Cardew (1901-1979) at his nearby Winchcombe Pottery.

In 1932 she married Edward Bawden (1903-1989) who had been a fellow student at the RCA. By that time Bawden, together with Eric Ravilious, a contemporary at the RCA were renting part of Brick House in Great Bardfield in Essex. Bawden's father bought the whole of Brick House as a wedding present for the Edward and Charlotte, and they occupied it until her death in 1970. Ravilious and his wife, the artist Tirzah Garwood, initially shared the house with the Bawdens, before moving to Castle Hedingham in Essex in 1934.

During the period that Charlotte and Tirzah shared Brick House they collaborated in creating hand-made marbled papers, which they sold as sheets, or made up into letter racks, blotters, etc., which they sold to the Little Gallery in Dunbar Hay, and to the book trade.

From the mid-1930s onwards Charlotte Bawden virtually gave up her work as an artist while she focused on raising a family and supporting her husband in his work. She was, however, heavily involved in the local community acting variously as a magistrate and lecturer at the local Women's Institute. She died in 1970. Her death was registered in Braintree, Essex.

_{Text source: Art History Research net (AHR net)}