When Tommy Steele was performing in a show in Liverpool in 1981, he made an offer to Liverpool City Council to create a sculpture as a tribute to the Beatles. His fee for the commission would be three pence (half a sixpence).[a] The offer was accepted by the Council, as the statue would be expected to increase the tourist trade of the city, and they made a donation of £4,000 towards its cost.[1] The project was otherwise funded by the Liverpool Echo.[2]
The statue took nine months to make. Steele unveiled it in Liverpool on 3 December 1982.[1]
Description
The statue consists of a bronze figure on a stone bench. The figure is 128 centimetres (50 in) high, 120 centimetres (47 in) wide, and 96 centimetres (38 in) deep. It depicts a seated woman with a handbag on her lap, a shopping bag on her right, and a copy of the Liverpool Echo on her left. Poking from the shopping bag is a milk bottle, and on the newspaper is a sparrow and a piece of bread. The woman is looking down at the sparrow.[1]
Steele included what he described as "magical properties" in his design, all hidden inside the bronze figure and representing a different facet of life. These were: a four-leaf clover (for good luck), a page from the Bible (for spiritual guidance), football boots (representing sport and fun), a comic book (for comedy and adventure), and a sonnet (for love).[2]
On the wall behind the figure is an inscribed plaque which originally read:[citation needed]
ELEANOR RIGBY
DEDICATED TO
"ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE ..."
This statue was sculpted and donated to the City of Liverpool
by Tommy Steele as a tribute to the Beatles.
The casting was sponsored by the Liverpool Echo.
DECEMBER 1982
This inscription has since been replaced.
The plaque as it appears in 2018
Close-up of Eleanor's face
Close-up of the sparrow at which Eleanor is looking
