Photo: Stu’s Images, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sculptor: Patricia Finch (1921–2001)
Materials: Mother and Child: bronze; pedestal: stone.
Inscription: Bronze plaque on stone pedestal: Purchased by / The Friends of the Children of / Great Ormond Street Hospital / in memory of / Andrew Meller / Sculptor- Patricia Finch April 2001
Erected: 2001
Mother and Child
This bronze bust of a young woman holding a small child dates from 2001 and is one of Finch’s last sculptures. It was commissioned by The Friends of the Children of Great Ormond Street Hospital in memory of Andrew Temple Meller, who was Director of the Friends of Great Ormond Street from 1995 until his death in January 2000. The models for the sculpture were the wife and child of one of the doctors at the hospital.
Patricia Finch trained as a doctor, but having married a fellow medical student, she took her finals while pregnant and failed. A doctor’s wife, she decided to use her anatomical knowledge to become a portrait sculptor. Her youngest daughter, Lucie Skeaping, was treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital when she was seriously ill at the age of one, and Finch always remained grateful to them. Lucie owns a resin cast of this work.
Bibl.: Juliet Rix, London’s Statues of Women, London, 2025, p. 146.
Location: Queen Square Gardens, Bloomsbury, London, WC1