Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in Walworth, London, on 16th April 1889, the son of two music hall performers, Charles and Hannah Chaplin. His parents separated before he was five years old. His mother struggled to make a living despite help from young Charlie who first appeared on stage at the age of five.
In 1896 Charlie Chaplin aged 6, his half brother Sydney, who was four years his senior, and their mother Hannah were admitted to Lambeth Union Workhouse in South London. In his autobiography Charlie describes his forlorn bewilderment when he was separated from his mother and the subsequent shock of seeing her so thin in workhouse clothes when she visited him a week later.
After three weeks in the workhouse, he and Sydney were transferred by horse-drawn bakery van to The Central London District Schools in Hanwell. "It was an adventurous drive and rather a happy one under the circumstances, for the country surrounding Hanwell was beautiful in those days, with lanes of horse-chestnut trees, ripening wheat fields and heavy-laden orchards, and ever since, the rich aromatic smell after rain in the country has always reminded me of Hanwell".
 Infants School Extension |
After a stay in the approbation ward, to make sure they were fit and healthy, Charlie and Sydney were separated, with Sydney put in the older boys' department and Charlie in the infants'.
With his mother now miles away and his brother in a different ward block so that they seldom saw each other, Charlie felt utterly dejected "especially on a summer's evening at bedtime during prayers, when, kneeling with twenty other little boys in the centre of the ward in our nightshirts, I would look out of the oblong windows at the deepening sunset and the undulating hills, and feel alien to it all as we sang in throaty off-key voices:
 A Domitory in 'A Block' |
"Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O, abide with me".
After two months, Hannah discharged herself from Lambeth workhouse and arranged for her sons to join her from Hanwell in order to spend the day with them. They had ninepence tied up in a handkerchief with which they bought half a pound of black cherries and spent the morning in Kennington Park, sitting on a bench eating them. Sydney crumpled a sheet of newspaper and wrapped some string around it for the three of them to play catch-ball. They went on to a coffee shop to spend the rest of the money on a twopenny teacake, a penny bloater and two halfpenny cups of tea, and then played in the park again while their Mother sat and crocheted.
The reunion was short-lived and soon they returned to Hanwell where Charlie started his education with learning to write.
Charlie Chaplin aged 7 circled
Saturday afternoon was bath time for the infants who were bathed by the older girls, which Charlie describes as his "first conscious embarrassment ... having to submit to the ignominy of a young girl of fourteen manipulating a facecloth all over my person".
On reaching seven, Charlie was transferred to the older boys' department where he joined in the drills, exercises and twice weekly walks - a hundred childen, two abreast along lanes and through villages around Hanwell. He hated being stared at by the locals.
He was once told, by the older boys, of an incident that had taken place the night before. A boy of fourteen had attempted to escape from the school by climbing out of a second floor window onto the roof and had thrown missiles and horse-chestnuts at staff as they climbed after him.
Punishments for offences such as this were handed out each Friday morning in the large gymnasium, a gloomy hall about sixty feet by forty with a high roof, and, on the side, climbing ropes running up to girders. Two or three hundred boys between seven and fourteen years old were marched in and lined up around three sides of the room with those facing punishment stood behind an Army mess table. To the right was an easel with wrist straps and a birch hanging from the frame.
For lesser offences, a boy was laid face down across a long desk, feet strapped, while his shirt was pulled up over his head. Captain Hindrum, a retired Navy man, then gave him three to six hefty strokes with a four-foot cane. Recipients would cry appallingly or even pass out and afterwards have to be carried away to recover. The spectacle was terrifying and invariably a boy would fall out of the watching ranks in a faint. For more serious offences, birch was used - after three strokes, a boy needed to be taken to the surgery for treatment. This was the fate of the runnaway boy.
One Thursday Captain Hindrum announced Charlie's name to receive punishment the following Friday for setting fire to the dykes [lavatories]. Although he was an innocent bystander, when asked he blurted out "Guilty" and so received three strokes of the birch.
Charlie did see Sydney sometimes. As Sydney worked in the kitchens he could get hold of luxuries such as a sliced bread roll with a thick lump of butter pressed into the middle for his brother. But on reaching the age of eleven, boys had the choice of joining the Army or the Navy and Sydney left Hanwell to join The Exmouth, a training ship. Charlie was now alone at Hanwell.
The Dining Hall
He caught ringworm and wept at the thought of having his head shaved and stained with iodine. The worst thing though was to be seen through the window of the isolation ward by the other children in the playground and see the looks of contempt they gave.
Sydney left The Exmouth and Charlie and he joined their Mother again. He had been at Hanwell for 18 months.
They moved to a different workhouse and from there to Norwood Schools, which Charlie said was "more sombre than Hanwell; leaves darker and trees taller. Perhaps the countryside had more grandeur, but the atmosphere was joyless".
1931 CHAPLIN RETURNS
34 years passed before Charlie Chaplin returned to Hanwell. He had now become the most successful and the most highly paid actor and movie maker in Hollywood and was instantly recognisable to film goers throughout the world.
He was greeted by vast crowds of enthusiastic fans and newsreel cameras when he came to London in 1921 but still managed to visit his family's old haunts in South London. 10 years later he left Hollywood for an extended European tour, arriving in London for the premiere of "City Lights" at the Dominion Theatre on 27th February 1931 and stayed much longer.
On this trip he found the time and plucked up the courage to revisit Hanwell.
The Daily Express reported:
"... He entered the dining hall, where four hundred boys and girls cheered their heads off at the sight of him - and he entered in style.
He made to raise his hat, and it jumped magically into the air! He swung his cane and hit himself in the leg! He turned out his feet and hopped along inimitably. It was Charlie! Yells! Shrieks of joy! More yells!
And he was enjoying himself as much as the children.
He mounted the dais and announced solemnly that he would give an imitation of an old man inspecting some pictures. He turned his back and moved along, peering at the wall. Marvel of marvels - as he moved the old man grew visibly! A foot, two feet! A giant of an old man!
The secret was plain if you faced him. His arms were stretched above his head; his overcoat was supported on his fingertips; his hat was balanced on the coat collar.
He saw the 'babies' bathed and in their night attire, sitting for a final warming round the fire, and the babies gave him another ovation, and he laughed like a baby.
The children will never forget his visit."
Chaplin told Thomas Burke of his feelings which he recorded in "City of Encounters".
"I wouldn't have missed it for all I possess. It's what I've been wanting. God, you feel like the dead returning to earth. To smell the smell of the dining hall, and to remember that was where you sat, and that scratch on the pillar was made by you. Only it wasn't you. It was you in another life - your soulmate - something you were and something you aren't now. Like a snake that sheds its skin every now and then. It's one of the skins you've shed, but it's still got your odour about it. O-o-oh, it was wonderful. When I got there, I knew it was what I'd been wanting for years. Everything had been leading up to it, and I was ripe for it. My return to London in 1921, and my return this year, were wonderful enough, but they were nothing to that. Being among those buildings and connecting with everything - with the misery and something that wasn't misery ... The shock of it, too. You see, I never really believed that it'd be there. It was thirty years ago when I was there, and thirty years - why, nothing in America lasts that long. I wanted it to be, Oh God, how I wanted it to be, but I felt it couldn't be.
Well, I got a taxi, and told him the direction, and we started out for it. And when we got near the place it was all streets - and shops - and houses. And I guessed it was gone. I don't know what I'd have done if it was gone. I reckon I'd have gone right back to Hollywood. Because it was what I'd come for. I told the driver to go on, though I didn't think it was any good, because I'd always remembered that the place was in the country, with fields all round it. And then the taxi stopped … and I then turned off the main road into something that looked like country fields and bushes. And then, all of a sudden, there it was. O-o-oh, it was there - just as I'd left it. I've never had a moment like that in my life. I was almost physically sick with emotion."
 Charlie Chaplin & Jackie Coogan in "The Kid" (1921) |
Sylvia Wilson remembers Chaplin's visit when she was nearing the end of her stay at the School and Bill Coates talks of his disappointment at having been away on the day of this surprise visit.
To find out more about Charlie Chaplin and his time at Hanwell visit:
British Film Institute - Charlie Chaplin
Workhouses.org.uk - Charlie Chaplin
Thanks to Kate Guyonvarch at CharlieChaplin.com