A SEARCH has been launched to find someone with the potential to go up in the world.

For Middlesbrough Council, which is orchestrating the search, it is a matter of finding someone of the right blood.

The council is looking for a descendant of one of the town's Victorian leaders - Alderman Tho-mas Sanderson, Middlesbrough's 33rd mayor.

On December 29, 1887, the former textile worker placed the final stone in Middlesbrough's 160ft town hall tower.

The council wants to find and invite a descendant of Ald Sanderson to a ceremony, yet to be arranged, to mark the completion of a £750,000 scheme to repair and renovate the listed tower.

The descendant, if found, may have to have a head for heights.

Contractors were called in after the tower started to lean, with the problem blamed on the effects of weathering.

Concerns were raised about the tower two years ago after a street level survey showed the clock was unstable because the tower was rotating.

While the clock tower has been swathed in scaffolding for more than a year, workers have numbered and removed layer after layer of stonework and, where possible, repaired weather-damaged stone and returned it to the tower.

Ald Sanderson, a father-of-six, was mayor of Middlesbrough when the town hall was opened by Edward Prince of Wales in 1887.

He became a councillor in 1869 and lived at 3 Cumberland Villas, Borough Road East.

Starting work aged 11 making colours and materials for the textile industry, he died in 1905.