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 of Charles II, Soho Square filled in and "converted into a somewhat unattractive flower-bed". In 1875–6 the square underwent substantial changes to its layout, during which the badly deteriorated statue was removed and the fountain demolished. The statue was rescued by Thomas Blackwell of the condiment firm Crosse & Blackwell, who had offices in the square. He gave it to his friend, the artist Frederick Goodall, with the intention that it might be restored. The present half-timbered gardener's shed took the statue's place at the centre of the square. Goodall installed the statue on an island in a lake at Grim's Dyke, his house near