Hannah Chaplin

Hannah Chaplin, birth name Hannah Harriet Pedlingham Hill, stage name Lily Harley (6 August 1865 – 28 August 1928), was an English actress, singer and dancer who performed in British music halls from the age of 16. Chaplin was the mother of Charlie Chaplin and his two half-brothers, the actor Sydney Chaplin and the film director Wheeler Dryden. As a result of debilitating illness, now thought to be syphilis, she was unable to continue performing from the mid-1890s. In 1921, she was relocated by her son Charlie to California, where she was cared for in a house in the San Fernando Valley until her death in August 1928.

Hannah Chaplin was born on 6 August 1865 at 11 Camden Street in the London district of Walworth. Her father, Charles Frederick Hill, the son of a bricklayer, was a shoemaker who may have been of Irish descent. Her mother, Mary Ann Hodges, the daughter of a mercantile clerk, had previously been married to a sign writer who had died in an accident.

At the age of 16, Chaplin left home to improve her fortunes by becoming an actress. Inspired by Lillie Langtry, one of the most successful female performers of the times, she adopted the stage name Lily Harley, performing as an actress and singer in the music halls. While taking part in an Irish sketch Shamus O'Brien in the early 1880s, she fell for her stage partner Charles Chaplin, attracted by his charm and good looks. Reflecting on this period, Charlie Chaplin described his mother as "divine-looking". He was later told that she had been "dainty and attractive and had compelling charm".

In about 1883, at approximately 18 years, she became involved with Sydney Hawkes (possibly Sidney Hawke) who took her to the South African gold-mining dictrict of Witwatersrand where, according to the psychiatrist Stephen Weissman in his 2008 book Chaplin: A Life, she was forced into prostitution. In 1884, pregnant by Hawkes, she returned to London where she again lived together with Charles Chaplin. In 1885, she gave birth to Sydney, Hawkes' son, and soon returned to the stage, performing at the Royal Music Hall in the northern French city of Le Havre. She married Charles on 22 June 1885 at St John's Church, Walworth.

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