Charles Hadfield was born in South Africa, and moved to Devon, England in 1924 and was educated at Blundell's School and St Edmund Hall Oxford. In 1936 he joined the Oxford University Press. He was invited to the home of the theatre critic and author Robert Aickman in May 1946, as were the author Tom Rolt and four others, the outcome of which was the formation of the Inland Waterways Association (IWA), a pressure group for the preservation and restoration of the waterways, with Aickman as chairman, Hadfield as vice-chairman and Rolt as secretary. In 1950 books about the waterways started to appear, to inform the public about their plight, with Rolt producing The Inland Waterways of England, Aickman producing Know your Waterways, and Hadfield producing Introducing Canals. Later the same year, his book British Canals appeared, which ultimately was expanded into a comprehensive series of books about canals throughout Great Britain.

Hadfield parted company with the IWA in 1951, after he, Rolt and others signed a memorandum suggesting that the organisation needed to have a policy of "priorities". This did not sit well with Aickman, who felt that all waterways should be retained and rule changes were introduced to force their exclusion. Hadfield recalled: "... a serious upset occurred in the Association: some original members were expelled and independent canal societies founded. The Association itself chose a protest role as a pressure group which had some success in preventing possible abandonments, but for a time kept it out of a constructive part in decision-making or co-operation with the Commission."

In 1946 he became the director of publications at the Central Office of Information.He was a founder member of the Railway and Canal Historical Society in 1954 and in 1960 he joined his friend David St John Thomas in setting up the publishing company David & Charles and continued publishing a stream of canal books. This extended to a study of world canals, amassing a rich store of research material now kept at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port.

Between 1963 and 1966 he was a member of the British Waterways Board. He resigned from the management of the publishing firm in 1964 but continued to edit The Canals of the British Isles series.In 1971 he was invited to rejoin the IWA and became a vice-president in 1983.

He married Alice Mary Miller in 1945 who died seven years before him in 1989 and they had two sons (one deceased) and a daughter.