Charles C. Bonney (1831-1903) was born in Hamilton, New York, and died in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Colgate University in Hamilton and received his LL.D. He moved to Peoria, Illinois, in 1850, where he lectured at Peoria College and helped set up the state's school system. In 1855, he married Lydia A. Bonney (b. Pratt) in Troy, New York. They moved to Chicago in 1860, and Bonney became a judge for the Supreme Court of Illinois in 1866. He was president of the Illinois State Bar Association in 1882 and a member of the American Bar Association, serving as its vice president in 1887. Bonney participated in the founding of the International Law and Order League in Toronto in 1880, which paved the way for the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He served as the organization's president from 1885 to 1893, and he was president of the Chicago Library Association. He published numerous books, pamphlets, and essays on public questions, most notably his Rules of Law for the Carriage and Delivery of Persons and Property by Railway (1864). Bonney is known for serving as President of the World's Congress Auxiliary, which was an official part of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. It was his idea to hold the Parliament of Religions as part of the Congress. He opened the Christian Science Congress on September 20, 1893. Bonney was a member of The New Church, also known as the Church of the New Jerusalem or Swedenborgianism.

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