Hugh Culling Eardley Childers (25 June 1827 – 29 January 1896) was a British Liberal statesman of the nineteenth century. He is perhaps best known for his reform efforts at the Admiralty and the War Office. Later in his career, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, his attempt to correct a budget shortfall led to the fall of the Liberal government led by William Gladstone.

Childers was born in London, the son of Reverend Eardley Childers and his wife Maria Charlotte (née Smith), sister of Sir Culling Eardley, 3rd Baronet and granddaughter of Sampson Eardley, 1st Baron Eardley. He was educated at Cheam School under Pestalozzi and then both Wadham College, Oxford and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. from the latter in 1850. Influential on his intellectual development were Adam Smith's theories of free trade, and capital returns.

Childers then decided to seek a career in Australia and on 26 October 1850 arrived in Melbourne, Victoria along with his wife Emily Walker.

Childers joined the government of Victoria and served as Inspector of Denominational schools (meaning Protestant and Catholic schools) and immigration agent. In 1852 he became a director of the Melbourne, Mount Alexander and Murray River Railway Company. Childers became auditor-general on 26 October 1852 and was nominated to the Victorian Legislative Council. In 1852 he placed a bill before the colonial legislature proposing the establishment of a university for Victoria, the second in Australia following the foundation of the University of Sydney in 1850. With the receipt of the Royal Assent in 1853, the University of Melbourne was founded, with Childers as its first vice-chancellor. Childers was Collector of Customs from 5 December 1853 to 28 November 1855 and Commissioner of Trade and Customs 28 November 1855 to 25 February 1857. Childers was elected to the inaugural Victorian Legislative Assembly for Portland in November 1856, a seat he held until resigning in February 1857.

Childers retained the vice-chancellorship until his return to Britain in March 1857 and received an M.A. from Cambridge in the same year.

In 1860 he entered the House of Commons as a Liberal member for Pontefract, and within a few years joined the government of Lord Palmerston, becoming a Civil Lord of the Admiralty in 1864 and then Financial Secretary to the Treasury in 1865.

With the election of Gladstone's government in December 1868, he rose to greater prominence, serving as First Lord of the Admiralty. Childers "had a reputation for being hardworking, but inept, autocratic and notoriously overbearing in his dealing with colleagues." He "initiated a determined programme of cost and manpower reductions, fully backed by the Prime Minister, Gladstone described him [Childers] as 'a man likely to scan with a rigid eye the civil expenses of the Naval Service'. He got the naval estimates just below the psychologically important figure of £10,000,000. Childers strengthened his own position as First Lord by reducing the role of the Board of Admiralty to a purely formal one, making meetings rare and short and confining the Sea Lords rigidly to the administrative functions... Initially Childers had the support of the influential Controller of the Navy, Vice-Admiral Sir [Robert] Spencer Robinson." "His re-organisation of the Admiralty was unpopular and poorly done."

Childers was responsible for the construction of HMS Captain in defiance of the advice of his professional advisers, the Controller (Robinson) and the Chief Constructor Edward James Reed. Captain was commissioned in April 1870, and sank on the night of 6/7 September 1870. She was, as predicted by Robinson and Reed, insufficiently stable. "Shortly before the battleship sank, Childers had moved his son, Midshipman Leonard Childers from Reed's designed HMS Monarch onto the new ship-of-the-line; Leonard did not survive." Childers "faced strong criticism following the Court Martial on the loss of HMS Captain, and attempted to clear his name with a 359-page memorandum, a move described as "dubious public ethics". Vice Admiral Sir Robert Spencer Robinson wrote 'His endeavors were directed to throw the blame which might be supposed to attach to himself on those who had throughout expressed their disapproval of such methods of construction'." Childers unfairly blamed Robinson for the loss of the Captain, and as a result of this Robinson was replaced as Third Lord and Controller of the navy in February 1871. "Following the loss of his son and the recriminations that followed, Childers resigned through ill health as First Lord in March 1871."