Statue of Charlie Chaplin, London Statue of Charlie Chaplin, London The statue of Charlie Chaplin in Leicester Square, London, is a work of 1979 by the sculptor John Doubleday. It portrays the actor, comedian and filmmaker in his best-known role, as The Tramp. A memorial to Chaplin in the city of his birth was proposed on 25 December 1977, soon after Chaplin's death, by Illtyd Harrington, the leader of the opposition in the Greater London Council. Initial plans for a memorial in the Elephant and Castle, in South London where Chaplin spent his early years, were dropped and instead Leicester Square, at the centre of
Statue Square until the bronze statue was almost completed. It was officially unveiled at the centre of the square on 28 May 1896, the day officially appointed for the celebration of the 77th birthday of the Queen. A statue of Sir Thomas Jackson, 1st Baronet, the chief manager of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation was unveiled in 1906. Apart from Jackson's statue and the two bronze lions in front of the HSBC building, the rest of the statues were displaced to Japan to be melted by the Japanese occupiers during World War II. The Cenotaph, a replica of the Cenotaph in