Charles Butters (August 10, 1854 – November 27, 1933) was an American metallurgist, engineer and mine owner. A graduate of the University of California, he moved to Southern Africa in 1890 to construct a chlorination plant for Hermann Eckstein & Company. Whilst there Butters pioneered the use of the gold cyanidation process for extracting the metal from low grade ore, which opened up new deposits in Witwatersrand. He also developed other methods that increased extraction efficiency. Butters left Eckstein in 1894 to jointly found a new firm, the Rand Central Ore Reduction Company. He joined the Johannesburg Reform Committee in 1895, a group of mostly immigrants to South Africa who demanded, among other things, a stable constitution, an independent judiciary, and a better educational system;