Charles Hudson was born at Sydney to a non-medical family, his father being an engineer, and his mother’s family having long associations with grazing and rural interests. He began his education at Barker College, and later at Sydney Church of England Grammar School, where he did well on both the sporting and the academic sides. In 1934 he was a prefect, a cadet-lieutenant, a member of the premiership football and athletic teams, and a member of the debating team. Later he obtained his commission in the Sydney University Regiment.

He graduated in 1940 with honours and shared the Clayton Memorial Prize for clinical medicine. His introduction to practical medicine was as a junior resident in casualty at Sydney Hospital on Christmas Eve, 1940 - a fairly busy day and night! In November, 1941, he married Jocelyn Basil- Jones and then joined the medical service of the RAAF, serving for four and a half years before being demobilised in 1946 as a squadron leader. Whilst on service, he was successful in the Membership examination of the RACP in April, 1944.

After the War, he was appointed honorary assistant physician at Sydney Hospital, and also honorary physician at Hornsby Hospital. He developed a very successful general practice at Wahroonga, and in 1955 he became established as a consulting physician in Macquarie Street. He worked with great enthusiasm at Sydney Hospital, where he was so highly regarded that after his untimely death, the Sydney Hospitallers dedicated an annual Memorial Lecture to the memory of Charles, and of Maurice Deck, another honorary assistant physician, who had also died at a relatively young age. The inaugural lecture was delivered in September, 1958 at Sydney Hospital by Sir Kenneth Noad, a former College president. Charles was survived by his widow, two young sons and a daughter.