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The marriage-rate (i.e., the number of persons married to 1,000 living) was 18·2, compared with
17·8, 18·7, and 19·2, in the three preceding years. The marriage-rate in England and Wales was
15·6 per 1,000, compared with 16·0, 15·9, and 15·8, in the three preceding years, and an average of
15·7 in the ten years 1893-1902. The rate in London was 17·4 per 1,000, compared with 18·0,
17·6, and 17·8, in the three preceding years.
BIRTHS AND BIRTH RATE.
The births registered were 3,565; viz., males, 1,826, and females, 1,739; the numbers being, in
the Town sub-district (which includes the Borough Infirmary), 3,033, and in the Brompton subdistrict,
532.
The births were 190 below the corrected decennial average (3,755): 151 of them were of
illegitimate children: they were 77 more than in the year 1902; but fewer by 476 than the
number in 1872 (4,041), when the population (127,400) was 50,600 less than in 1903.
The birth-rate, which of late years has been always considerably below that of London, has
been declining since 1868, in which year it was 33·1 per 1,000 persons living. In 1903 it was
20·0 per 1,000, and 1·0 below the decennial average (21·0). The London birth-rate was 28·4 per
1,000, the same as that of England and Wales, and lower than that recorded in any one of the ten
preceding years—and was in fact the lowest yet recorded.
The rate in the sub-districts was:—Town, 23·5, and Brompton, 10·9 per 1,000.
The births in North Kensington, i.e., the part of the borough north of Holland Park Avenue
and High Street, Notting Hill, were 2,605, and the birth-rate 28·4 per 1,000 living, being the same
as the metropolitan rate.
The births in South Kensington, i.e., the part of the borough south of those streets, were 960,
and the birth-rate ll·l, or 17·3 per 1,000 below the metropolitan rate.

The births exceeded the deaths in the Borough by 1,110: in the Metropolis by 58,797.
In the Town sub-district the births were 1,035 more in number than the deaths: in the
Brompton sub-district the excess of births was 75 only, without correction for births at the
infirmary.
In North Kensington the births exceeded the deaths by 1,046; in South Kensington to the
number of 64 only.

The deaths exceeded the births by 19 in Holland Ward, by 3 in Earl's Court Ward, and by
6 in Brompton Ward.
The registered births of illegitimate children in the borough as a whole were 151 (ten fewer
than in 1902). Of these births 135 were registered in the Town sub-district, which includes the
workhouse, at which institution out of 115 live births (males 53, females 62) 80 were illegitimate.
In the borough generally the illegitimate births formed 4·2 per cent. of total births as compared
with rates of 5·1, 4·6 and 4·6 in the three preceding years.