The Royce Institute

These two war memorials have been taken into care after the closure of The Royce Institute in 2021.

What was The Royce Institute? It was named in honour of Dr Mary Royce (1845 -1892) who qualified in 1890 as Leicester’s first female doctor. She was also a leading member of the Gallow Tree Gate Chapel.

For 25 years even while studying for her medical degree and during her doctor’s work in the city, she also taught at Sunday classes for young men in an effort to keep them off the streets.

She established two medical practices one from her home and had a building erected in

Lower Church Street especially to enlarge on this work. Here she also gave medical advice to the poor. In April 1892 she was elected, unopposed, as the Poor Law Guardian in St. Margaret’s Ward.

Her work was tragically cut short in October 1892 when she died from a streptococcal infection contracted when visiting a patient in the Workhouse Infirmary. She was greatly mourned for all her good works, carried out in a very unassuming manner. Large numbers attended her funeral.

Her work carried on and when the new building was constructed in 1969 in Crane Street, Leicester it was quite rightly named in her honour. Recently a blue plaque has been fixed to the building by Leicester City Council.