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Sir Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) was probably the most famous comic actor of all time – and almost certainly therefore Kennington’s most famous resident. He made his reputation dressed as a tramp, with smudge moustache, frock coat, bowler hat, cane and outsized shoes in silent films from the mid-1910s, mixing buffoonery with pathos and eventually combining dialogue with music. He was born in East Street – site of a still flourishing street market just off the Walworth Road – to two music hall performers, Charles and Hannah Chaplin. But Charlie had a rough early life. His parents separated before he was 5 years old. His mother then struggled to make a living - Charlie first appeared on stage at the age of 5 when his mother was unable to complete her act – and she had a mental breakdown when he was 9, eventually ending up in an asylum. Charlie’s father was an alcoholic and, although he became a successful businessman, eventually owning a number of public houses, he died when Charlie was 12.
The result was that Charlie spent much of his time on the streets of North Lambeth, hanging around outside his dad’s pubs, and staying overnight in workhouses or with his father and his new partner. But he closely observed the local characters in an area which was both very poor and dominated by the theatre – which had yet to move to respectability north of the river. The streets of Lambeth were in effect a large open air theatre and this early experience fed much of Charlie’s later comic genius. It is not too difficult to imagine the scene in the above photo in the streets of Lambeth at the end of the 1900s.