Albany, known as “Barney” was born in Chelsea early in 1892 to Albany Hawke Charlesworth and Eleanor C. Charlesworth. Albany H. was a colliery owner and sometime M.P. and an art collector. In 1901, living in Didsbury, he employed 15 indoor servants. By the time of the 1911 census, only 11 were employed. His wife is described as “Christian Science Practitioner” and two other Practitioners were staying in the house. At his death on 9 September 1914, he left £539,250-6-3.

Barney was educated at Eton and matriculated in 1911. He travelled, regularly, to the United States and Canada, often with his father who had been injured in a riding accident and was confined to a wheelchair.

He joined the 6th Dragoon Guards [Carabiniers] and was gazetted a Lieutenant on 16 April 1915.  He was awarded the Military Cross.

He married Diana [Marjorie N] daughter of the Hon. Rupert Beckett at St. George’s, Hanover Square in the summer of 1923. They had one child, David, born in 1926. They lived at Grinton Lodge near Richmond, Yorkshire.

On 2 September 1939, he was gazetted “Lt. Albany Kennett Charlesworth M.C., Reserve of Officers to be Hon. Colonel.” He served with the Royal Armoured Corps 3rd Carabiniers (Prince of Wales's Dragoon Guards). For much of the war, he was aide de camp to Field Marshal Alan Brooke. [1st Viscount Alanbrooke]

Barney was killed in an air accident when on his way to the Yalta Conference on 1 February 1945.

In his diaries, Field Marshall Viscount Alanbrooke says "Barney" Charlesworth was my daily companion for five years and his death was one of the most serious personal losses I suffered in the war. “

In Volume VI of his “The Second World War”, Winston S. Churchill said “On January 29 I left Northolt - - -  The rest of my personal staff and some departmental officials, travelled in two other planes. We arrived at Malta just before dawn on January 30, and there I learnt that one of these two aircraft had crashed near Pantelleria. Only three of the crew and two passengers survived. Such are the strange ways of fate.”

An Australian newspaper reported “THE AIR TRAGEDY LIST OF THOSE KILLED LONDON, February 7. The aircraft accident in which members of the British Government staff en route to the three-Power conference lost their lives occurred on February 1st. All the passengers were killed except Air Commodore H. A. C. Sanderson, of the Air Ministry, who was seriously injured. Three members of the crew are missing and four were injured. The passengers killed were: Mr Peter Loxley who was private secretary to the Foreign Under-Secretary, Sir Alexander Cadogan; Miss Armine Dew, Mr. John Chaplin, and Miss Sullivan, members of the Foreign Office staff; Mr. Robert Guthrie, King's Messenger; Detective-Sergeant H. J. Battley, Mr. Eden's bodyguard; Colonel I. S. Hooper, Colonel W. G. Newey, Colonel A.K. Charlesworth, and Captain W. H. Finch, all of the War Office: Group Captain P. S. Jackson-Taylor, of the Air Ministry; and L.A.C. J. Chicken, of the Transport Command.

He is buried in the Imtarfa Military Cemetery Joint grave 1. 1C. 6.

He is commemorated on the MCC Roll of Honour and on the Memorial at St. Andrew’s Church, Dinton.

On 2 June 1946, his son, David [330892] who was a Lieutenant with the 3rd Battalion, the Grenadier Guards was killed in a motor accident in Palestine and is buried in the Khayat Beach War Cemetery Plot C. C. 4.

In 1946, Diana Charlesworth sold Grinton Lodge which had been owned by the Charlesworth family since the 1870s, originally as a shooting lodge. She donated “Off to the Pub” by Walter Sickert to the Leeds City Art Gallery.

She married Lord George Cholmondeley in 1948 and died in 1965.