The Brocks were family of artists in Cambridge at the end of the Victorian Era, throughout the Edwardian era and the Interwar period. The four brothers were professional painters and illustrators. Two brothers gained a large reputation with their illustrations for the works of Jane Austen and other English classics. One brother secured an honours degree in mathematics, a huge achievement at the time for someone from a lower-middle-class background. The three sisters had a much lower profile, in accordance with the social norms of the time. At least one of the sisters was a capable artist and poet, but it is not clear to what extent she earned her living from her art. The biographer of the family, Clifford Michael Kelly, started out with the intention of writing just about Charles and Henry, the most famous of them, but realised that all the siblings worked together and supported each other.

Charles Edmund Brock was a widely published English painter, line artist and book illustrator, who signed most of his work C. E. Brock. He was the eldest of four artist brothers, including Henry Matthew Brock, also an illustrator.