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Our fifth and final statue was unveiled on 25th June 2026
The statue of Elizabeth Andrews OBE, the champion of workers' and women's rights and our final Monumental Welsh Woman, was created by artist Billie Bond and unveiled at the Rhondda Heritage Park in South Wales on 25th June 2026.
The Sculptor
The sculptor Billie Bond created a beautiful bronze statue of Elizabeth, highlighting her campaign for pit-head baths and her tireless work for the children of the mining communities of South Wales.
Born in Northumberland in 1965, Billie Bond grew up in Essex and now lives in Suffolk. An early career in nursing gave her an appreciation of human anatomy, which she considers sensitively in her figurative representations.
Billie gained an MA in Sculptural Practice 2016 and a 1st class Honours Degree in 3D Design 2011 at Colchester School of Art. She was also awarded a research residency at the Henry Moore Institute Leeds and in 2018 was selected to be a Member of the Royal Society of Sculptors.
Billie won the Pure Arts Sculpture Prize in 2013, with the winning piece A Link With The Past being exhibited in a curated space at Saatchi Gallery, London as part of the Strarta art fair. The work is now part of the Birth Rites collection residing at Kings College, London.
In 2009 Billie sculpted her sister, who has Downs Syndrome, on the 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square as part of Anthony Gormley’s One & Other highlighting the importance of art for everyone.
The Unveiling
The unveiling ceremony for the statue of Elizabeth Andrews took place on Thursday, 25 June at 11am at Rhondda Heritage Park Museum, Lewis Merthyr Colliery, Coed Cae Road, Trehafod, Pontypridd, Rhondda Cynon Taff.
The unveiling event included performances from Hirwaun School Choir, and a choir made up of members of Côr Cwm Rhondda and Côr Cwm Cynon and a reading of a poem by the National Poet of Wales, Hanan Issa, specially commissioned by Literature Wales which you can hear below.
The statue was unveiled by members of Elizabeth Andrews’ family including her great-great-niece Melinda Hawthorne and her great-niece Maura High, who travelled from her home in the United States for the event.
"Write,Mend, Build" by Hanan issa, National Poet of WALES
Commissioned by Literature Wales to celebrate the completion of the Monumental Welsh Women project
"There is no room for hubris in her. Memories may erode
but she does not force her footprints into the sand.
She knows her stone feet were not meant to last.
Her mark was made in a different way -
Acts of care ripple over time, etching
into both soil and sea. Her legacy is not lost when the wind blows.
No, it spreads. Constellating across new minds
alive with that same coiled kindness.
She is memory embalmed: in a soot-covered child’s exhausted sigh,
or the careful sounds of a woman reading her name aloud.
That legacy canopies. It is a safe shade that time dapples through
onto those glancing back before taking a step.
Girls unfurling, dream of winning a marathon,
women whisper their band’s name into a pillow at night.
Maybe others cut hair, lead the charge, chart the stars, write, mend, build?
Within us we carry all of what was and what will.
But, always, we must live bright and care loudly.
For that is how the stars mark the passing of time.
They watch, giving names to radiant shimmers in the dark -
Betty, Cranogwen, Elaine, Margaret, Elizabeth. "
