{At bottom right:}
James Woodford R.A.
Phillip Ward-Jackson in his encyclopaedic "Public Sculpture in the City of London" identifies these reliefs as representing the four elements, clockwise from top left: Fire, Air, Earth, Water. In Water the female figure rings the Lutine Bell, which actually happens in Lloyd of London whenever a ship goes down (although the ringer is probably a man with more clothes on). There were 85 other (smaller) pieces of Woodford's work on this building. Let's hope they also have been rescued and are perhaps on display inside the Willis building.
Site: Lloyds of London 1958 building (1 memorial)
EC3, Gracechurch Street
From "In the 1950s Woodford made a set of reliefs representing the four elements for the Lloyds building in Lime Street in the City of London. They were placed very high up; Arthur Byron in "London's Statues" describes them as "barely visible."[7] Following the demolition of the building they were installed on a wall at street level as part of the landscaping of the Willis Building on the same site."
2023: The reported: "The insurance titan Lloyd’s of London, multibillion pound cornerstone of the City’s wealth, power and renown, has taken steps since 2020 to admit its immense historic involvement in slavery, and has published powerful research on the evidence in its archives."
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