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Table XI. is very valuable as containing a reliable sanitary
history of Battersea since 1856, the year in which modern
sanitation first came into existence under the provisions of the
Metropolis Local Management Act of 1855, and by which
sanitary authorities, in the form of Vestries and District Boards,
the latter consisting of small parishes grouped together, were
first constituted for London as a whole.
This Parish at that time consisted of a congeries of small
villages, between which extended market gardens; the inhabitants
and dependents of some few dozens of large houses, the residences
chiefly of merchants, with the workers at the market gardens
constituting the principal population. It will be observed that
the population was then but 15,069, and at the census year of
1861 had but reached the number of 19,582. The birth-rate was
then higher than now. The death-rate, however, although the
population was very sparse, was much higher than at present.
It has been laid down as an axiom that mortality increases in
direct proportion to the density of population, and it is the aim
of modern sanitation to limit or prevent such increase. That
the same Parish, of course with the same superficial area, should,
with a ten-fold population, have a reduced instead of an augmented
death-rate, shews that the authority having charge of
the sanitation, which includes the health condition and duration
of lives of the inhabitants, has performed its public duties in an
exemplary manner. It will be seen that the year 1899 compares
very favourably with the forty-four years included in the Table
having the lowest mortality rate with five exceptions.
Tables XII., XIII., XIV., XV., and XVI. contain particulars
of mortality respectively of East Battersea, West Battersea,
Wandsworth and Clapham Union Infirmary and Bolingbroke
Hospital, particulars as to parishioners and non-parishioners
being given in regard to the two latter institutions. These tables
being the basis upon which all other mortality tables are founded
are continued for purposes of comparison, having been used since
the year 1856.