Charles Hotson Ebden (1811 – 28 October 1867) was an Australian pastoralist and politician, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, the Victorian Legislative Council and the Victorian Legislative Assembly.

Ebden was born in 1811 at the Cape of Good Hope in the Cape Colony, the son of merchant, banker and politician John Bardwell Ebden and his wife Antoinetta. He was educated in England and also in Karlsruhe in the German Confederation.

As a young man Ebden made several trips between the Cape and the Australian colonies, before settling in Sydney, New South Wales in 1832 and establishing a merchant business. After accumulating sufficient capital, he moved into pastoralism, and by early 1835 was among those pastoralists introducing cattle to the southern parts of New South Wales. He established a run at Tarcutta Creek, before his stockman, William Wyse, commenced two more runs straddling the Murray River: Mungabareena, near what is now Albury, and Bonegilla, near what is now Bonegilla, making Ebden the first pastoralist to send cattle across the Murray River.

Ebden hired Charles Bonney midway through 1836 to manage the stations on the Murray, but soon sent Bonney to search for an overland cattle route to Melbourne and the other settled parts of the Port Phillip District. The Ovens River was in flood during Bonney's first attempt, and he was unable to find a way across, but a second attempt was commenced on 25 December 1836. Some accounts place Ebden with Bonney on this second journey, which was completed on 7 January when the party arrived in Melbourne, just days behind John Gardiner, Joseph Hawdon and John Hepburn, the first to bring cattle overland from New South Wales.

Ebden and Charles Bonney drove 10,000 sheep from Mungabareena station on the Murray on 1 March 1837 and reached Sugarloaf Creek, a tributary of the Goulburn River on about 14 March 1837. They set up the first European settlement in inland Victoria, a sheep station, adjacent to the intersection of Seymour Pyalong Road with Tallarook Pyalong Road.

Ebden then shifted 9000 of the sheep to the second settlement in inland Victoria, Carlsruhe, arriving there on 26 May 1837. Charles Bonney in turn drove 1000 of the sheep to Kilmore and set up the third settlement in inland Victoria, another sheep station, on about 17 June 1837. Kilmore rapidly became the first inland town in Victoria.

Ebden's his flock was estimated to consist of nine thousand sheep, suggesting the backing of capital of about £20,000. He was in Melbourne in the middle of the year in time for the first land sale, held on 1 June 1837, at which one hundred lots of just under 0.5 acres (0.20 ha) each were auctioned, the lots covered eight major blocks, bounded by Flinders, Bourke, King and Swanston streets. Ebden was among the major purchases, buying three lots in Collins Street between Queen and William streets.

Ebden lived in Melbourne from about 1840, having sold Mungabareena station in 1837 and Carlsruhe station in 1840. He had also sold his three lots in Collins Street in September 1839 for a total of £10,244 (having purchased them two years earlier for £136); at the Melbourne Club shortly after the sale he remarked "I fear I am becoming disgustingly rich". In Melbourne Ebden lived in a mansion he had built at the top end of Collins Street.