julia.gregory@archant.co.uk EXPERT metal worker Nancy Thomson is restoring a statue of East End Prime Minister Clement Attlee at the Bronze Age Foundry in Limehouse be
EXPERT metal worker Nancy Thomson is restoring a statue of East End Prime Minister Clement Attlee at the Bronze Age Foundry in Limehouse before it moves to a new home in Mile End.
Attlee was one of the architects of the National Health Service and the welfare state.
He served as Prime Minister from 1945 to 1951 and was deputy under Winston Churchill during World War Two.
He was mayor of Stepney in 1919 and was the Labour MP for Limehouse from 1922 to 1950 before becoming MP for Walthamstow West.
The �23,000 statue by Frank Forster was originally commissioned by the Greater London Council to stand in Mile End but was passed on to Tower Hamlets council after the London-wide body became defunct and erected outside Limehouse Library in 1988.
When the library was shut vandals cut off the statue's right hand. The council has now passed the larger than life size statue to Queen Mary College, University of London which is picking up the tab for the renovation and giving it a new home on the Mile End campus.
Mr Forster has created a replacement hand which is holding a copy of Attlee's National Assistance Act of 1948 and Miss Thomson will fix it to the statue before cleaning it up and matching the hand's colour with the rest of the statue.
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