Charles Hill-Tout was born in Devonshire, England and educated at Oxford University. He came to Canada in 1884 and, after a brief time back in England, moved his family to Vancouver, British Columbia, circa 1892. He served as acting-principal of Dr. Whetham's College for several years before founding his own school, Buckland College, on Burrard Street. After approximately a decade at Buckland, Hill-Tout gave up education and moved to a farm in the Abbotsford area, where he subsequently opened and operated a mill producing railway ties for the CPR. Hill-Tout was also keenly interested in anthropology and he spent much time researching and writing articles about the native peoples of British Columbia. He became a respected authority on this topic and his involvement in various associations and organizations, both locally and abroad, included service as secretary of a committee for the Ethnological Survey of Canada, appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and as president of the Anthropological section of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Art, Historical and Scientific Association of Vancouver. Among other honours, Hill-Tout received fellowships in the Royal Society of Canada, the American Ethnological Society, and the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain.