Mr Maple said the Lever bust was probably heavy, despite being hollow, and would be too recognisable to be sold as an artwork.

He said: “Whoever took it wouldn’t be able to sell it, because there is only one of them and it’s too well known.

“We suspect maybe it was stolen for the melt-down value of the bronze.”

However, he said it had been stolen once before, around 15 years ago, but following a public outcry had been discovered abandoned half a mile from the church in undergrowth.

Mr Maple said: “We are hoping it will again be found. The spikes are still there where the bust was positioned, in the hope that it will be returned.”

Gavin Hunter, a local historian, had discovered the background to the missing bust and the fact that it had been commissioned by the Lever family.

Mr Hunter, a former employee of Lever Brothers at Port Sunlight, said few further details were known about it.

He is currently writing a biography of the Second Viscount and found the memo about the commission last year.

William Hulme Lever, first son of businessman William Hesketh Lever, who founded Lever Brothers, was born in 1888 – the same year the family moved to Thornton Manor in Wirral and died in 1949. Also in 1888, Lever bought the land at Bebington, to the south of Birkenhead, on the Wirral, to build Port Sunlight, a village for a new factory, and created the famous village for the people who would be working there.

The Second Viscount Leverhulme, William Hulme Lever, took his title on the death of his father in 1925, who was also buried at Christ Church, in Port Sunlight, which was built in 1904.

ANYONE who has seen the sculpture since Monday night – or been offered it for sale – is asked to call Merseyside Police Bromborough Station, on 0151 777 2530.