Leicester Chronicler - Rutland Street

Almost every street in a town will reveal its history if one is prepared to look closely enough.

Rutland Street in Leicester's city centre typifies the character of the city and echoes its past. It is in the heart of the city, connecting the important Granby Street to Humberstone Gate, and crossing Charles Street.

From small shops to neat factory units, which are now finding a new life as attractive residential apartments, the street reminds us of all the aspects of a Midland city.

It is now beginning a new `life' as the road that passes through the heart of the new Cultural Quarter.

The Exchange Buildings create an imposing architectural statement at the junction of Rutland Street and Halford Street. Formerly, these buildings were home to the Leicester Auctioneers and estate Agents Association, the National Federation of Shopkeepers and the Midlands Area Coach and Transport Association.

Dick's shoe factory, on the corner of Rutland Street and Colton Street is an attractive but subdued building in the renaissance style, perfectly suited in scale to its location. Nearby is the former Faire's (smallware and general shoe mercery manufacturers) factory, larger, more emphatic in scale, and again renaissance in style, dwarfing its neighbour, the city centre headquarters of another local shoe manufacturer which is still a national High Street name, Freeman Hardy & Willis Ltd. It was the design of a local architect, Edward Burgess.

A number of street's buildings are now protected by gaining listed buildings status. These include the now boarded-up Odeon Cinema - a splendid art deco design which gained some notoriety from being the place where Leicester-born playwright Joe Orton was first seduced - allegedly.

Also protected is the Exchange Building, (Grade II), St George's Church, now a place of worship for the Leicester Serbian Orthodox community, (Grade C) which is currently undergoing major restoration by Leicester City Council as a result of grant aid from English Heritage, Alexander House and Nos 29, and 37-43 (Grade II).

Thomas Inman - The Mythologist of Rutland Street

Thomas Inman MD (1820-1876), who became known as a `mythologist', was born on 27 January 1820 in Rutland Street in Leicester, the second son of Charles Inman who was a native of Lancaster who was sometime partner in Pickfords the carrying company, and later a director of the Bank of Liverpool. William Inman was his younger brother.

Thomas went to school at Wakefield, and in 1836 was apprenticed to his uncle, Richard Inman MD at Preston in Lancashire. He entered King's College, London where he had a distinguished career, graduating MB in 1842 and MD in 1844 at the University of London.

Declining a commission as an army surgeon, he settled in Liverpool as house-surgeon to the Royal Infirmary. He obtained a good practice as a physician, and was for many years physician to the Royal Infirmary. His publications on personal hygiene are full of shrewd practical counsel.

On 21 October 1844 he became a member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool to whose Proceedings he frequently contributed papers chiefly on archaeological subjects. He had little original scholarship but read widely, and although the basis of his research is regarded as quite unscientific, his writings display great ingenuity.

In 1871 he gave up practice and retired to Clifton near Bristol where he died on 3 May 1876. He was a man of handsome presence, and his genial temperament made him generally popular. He married in 1844 Jennet Leighton, daughter of Daniel Newham of Douglas, Isle of Man, and had six sons and two daughters, of whom two sons and two daughters survived him.