Charles Jones was born in 1870, and joined the Metropolitan Railway in London in 1903 as an electrical engineer. On 1st January 1906, he was appointed to the position of Chief Resident Electrical & Mechanical Engineer.

Jones arrived at the Metropolitan Railway shortly before their programme of large scale electrification. Jones designed and was responsible for the power stations and substations essential to this programme's success.

As well as working with the modern electric trains, Jones designed two classes of steam locomotive for the Metropolitan. Both entered LNER ownership in 1937. The Class G (LNER M2) was based on an 0-6-4T wheel arrangement for suburban hauling. These experienced frame breakages from stresses due to the relatively-long 6-coupled wheelbase on the tight Metropolitan curves, so he developed the 4-4-4T Class H (LNER H2) from the Class G design.