Inman was the son of Philip Inman (d. 1894), of
Knaresborough,
Yorkshire, a rate collector, by his wife Hannah Bickerdyke, of
Great Ouseburn, Yorkshire. He was educated at Headingley College,
Leeds, and
Leeds University. He fought in the
First World War, where he was invalided out. He married May Dew on 27 August 1919; they had a son, Philip John Cope Inman, on 15 March 1929. In 1910, when he was an apprentice to a chemist, he was a member of the Malton Mutual Improvement Society, where during a debate he once argued for the
abolition of the House of Lords. ==Career==