John Trunley


John Thomas Trunley was a British music hall and sideshow performer famed for his obesity and known during his lifetime as The Fat Boy of Peckham.
As a child he gained weight rapidly and by the age of seven months he weighed. By the age of four he weighed and was taken to be examined by the eminent doctor, Sir Frederick Treves. When he started school at six he had a chest and waist. He achieved national prominence when Lord Northcliffe ran a critical story about London County Council’s decision to extend an existing tramway because Trunley could no longer walk to Reddins School. Shortly after this he began to tour England under the management of entrepreneurs such as Fred Karno. Trunley appeared on the music halls informing the audience "I want to be a jockey". After the First World War he negotiated a film contract playing small character parts. He married and had children, before dying of pulmonary TB in 1944. He is buried in Camberwell New Cemetery.