Gawen, an eminent deaf sculptor, executed this statue, The Good Shepherd. The statue eventually was in a poor and unkempt condition, having been exposed to rain and pollutants for over seventy years outside St. Saviour’s Church and Centre for the Deaf in Armstrong Road, Acton, in West London. In 1996 Peter Brown, a deaf historian, was concerned about its degenerating condition so he drew the attention of Mike Theobald, the Centre’s President, to the damage to the statue and proposed to re-site it indoors. It was then brought to the attention of the Royal Association of Deaf People as it was responsible for the Churches and Centres for the deaf in the South-east of England.
After a flurry of correspondence it was finally agreed to restore the statue. Both the BDHS and the RAD paid for the renovation. Two stonemasons, specializing in masonry conservation, worked on the statue and used a light pressure wash of water to remove grime and lichen from the statue’s surface. After this restoration it was hoisted and wheeled indoors and was later sited in the church beside the altar.
The statue was then donated to the Deaf Museum when St. Saviour’s was sold in 2015.
Note on Joseph Gawen: It is claimed that Joseph Gawen was the man who had sculpted the figure of Lord Nelson that sits atop Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square and was never given credit for this work. But the figure was sculptured during 1840-1843 and Gawen would at that time have been fifteen years old in 1840. In 1867 Sir Edwin Landseer designed the bronze lions placed on guard at the base of Nelson’s Column so it is more likely that Gawen had sculptured the lions.