John Trunley
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image John Thomas Trunley (14 October 1898 – 30 September 1944) was a British music hall and sideshow performer famed for his obesity and known during his lifetime as The Fat Boy of Peckham.[1]Template:Sfn
As a child he gained weight rapidly and by the age of seven months he weighed Script error: No such module "convert".. By the age of four he weighed Script error: No such module "convert". and was taken to be examined by Sir Frederick Treves, the same doctor who famously treated "Elephant Man" Joseph Merrick.
He made his music-hall debut in 1903 at the Yarmouth Hippodrome in December 1903,[2] and appeared at the Royal in Holborn the same year.[2] One of his jokes was, "I want to be a jockey."Script error: No such module "Unsubst". At some pointScript error: No such module "Unsubst". he began to tour England under the management of entrepreneurs such as Fred Karno[3][4] and Buffalo Bill Cody.[4] However, at age "six and a half"[4] he was forced to begin attending school at the Reddins School in Peckham.[4] When Trunley started school he had a Script error: No such module "convert". chest and Script error: No such module "convert". waist.[4]
By December 1906 he was well-known enough for The Sketch to run a humorous item alleging that the London County Council (then occupied in expanding the electric tram service) was considering the construction of a "special service" specially to carry Trunley.[5]
After the First World War he negotiated a film contract playing small character parts. He married Florence Weeden (b. 1899)[4] and fathered one child, also named John.
Trunley died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1944.[4] He is buried in Camberwell New Cemetery.[4]
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