Campaigners are celebrating now that a permanent home has been found for a plaque commemorating the life of Elephant Man Joseph Merrick.

The black granite plaque will be installed at Moat Community College, in Highfields, during the Christmas holidays.

The college occupies the site of the workhouse in which Merrick lived in 1879 and 1880.

Assistant principal Anne Steventon said: "We were delighted to receive the plaque. His story is central to our ethos as a multi-cultural school.

"We look at what is in a person's heart, we do not judge by appearances."

The plaque had been fixed to the wall of the Hippodrome Theatre, on the corner of Wharf Street and Gladstone Street, in 2004.

It was removed in 2008 before the theatre was demolished.

Jeanette Sitton, founder of the Friends of Joseph Carey Merrick group, has been campaigning ever since for a permanent memorial in Leicester.

Historian Stephen Butt presented the plaque to the school on behalf of the Friends of Joseph Carey Merrick group.

He said: "The friends are delighted that Moat Community College agreed to accept it.

"It is the ideal location. "