Hannah Chaplin

Hannah Chaplin ( born August 11, 1865 in London, † August 28 1928 in Hollywood, California; born Hannah Harriet Hill, widowed Hannah Pedlingham ) was a British singer and dancer. However notoriety she achieved primarily as the mother of Charles Chaplin.

When Hannah Charles S. Chaplin met her, she already had a son from his first marriage, Sidney John Hill, who later called Sydney Chaplin. She was admitted as a singer in the ensemble of the London Music Hall, where she performed under her artist name Lily Harley. On April 16, 1889 her second son, Charles Chaplin, Jr. was born.

The Marriage of Chaplin took a quick end when Hannah was her lover, the artist Leo Dryden, pregnant. During many years, Charlie knew nothing of his half-brother Wheeler Dryden.

While Charlie and Sydney Youth Hannah Chaplin suffered from syphilis and severe depression and was very often in psychiatric treatment. In 1895 she was first admitted under the name Lilian Chaplin in the psychiatric ward of Lambeth Hospital. Less than a year later she was on the stage again, but was hospitalized again in May 1896. Her two sons had to go to the poorhouse. Charlie and Sydney grew up primarily in homes and boarding schools. From 1898, Sydney fled to the sea and hired only on a training ship and then on various cruise ships as a steward.

On May 9, 1903 Hannah Chaplin was again classified as mentally ill and admitted to the acute ward of the asylum Cane Hill. In 1904 she was provisionally released and accompanied her son Charlie on his tour of England. In 1905 she was back in Cane Hill. Their sons they left embarrassed into privately run Peckham House Hospital, where she remained for nearly a decade.

Hannah was never healed. 1921 brought the two sons in the United States. Charlie bought her a house in Hollywood and concerned caregiver for them. She lived there until she died on August 28, 1928.

Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator, his mother called the female lead in honor of Hannah.