Charles Clifford was a Welsh photographer born in 1820. Not much is known about his early life, but by November 1850, he was running a photographic portrait gallery in Madrid.

Clifford was mostly for his daguerreotype, calotype and wet plate collodion images of scenes from around Spain.

Although known mainly for his collections of photographs of landscapes, monuments and public works, he was commissioned to carry out a portrait of Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle (her notes in her Journal for 14 November 1861 state she was ‘dressed in evening dress, with diadem & jewels’ and was ‘photographed for the Queen of Spain by Mr Clifford. It was possibly one of the last portraits taken of the queen wearing a colour), and was also named Court Photographer to the Queen of Spain, accompanying her on the royal tour of Andalucia in 1862.

He published two volumes, containing a series of 159 prints commissioned by Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, the King and Queen of Spain, the Emperors of France, Russia and Austria, the Duc de Montpensier, among others.