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Table A, Appendix II. (page 109) gives the number of births and the birth-rate for each of
the forty-eight years, 1856-1903.
DEATHS AND DEATH-RATE.
The deaths registered, inclusive of 318 deaths of parishioners at outlying public institutions,
etc., but exclusive of deaths of non-parishioners at public institutions, etc., within the borough, were
2,455 (males 1,160, females 1,295), and 420 below the corrected decennial average (2,875). Of these
deaths, 1,998 were registered in the Town sub-district and 457 in Brompton.
The death-rate, which in the three preceding years had been 15·6, 15·0, and 15·2 per 1,000
respectively, was 13·8* in 1903: 2·3 below the decennial average (16·1), and 1·9 below the rate in
the Metropolis as a whole (15·7); the decennial average for the Metropolis being 18·9.
The rate in the sub-districts was: Town 15·5, Brompton 9·3 per 1,000, as compared with
17·1 and 10·1 respectively in 1902.
The deaths in North Kensington were 1,559, and the death-rate 17·0 per 1,000.
The deaths in South Kensington were 896, and the death-rate 10·4 per 1,000.
The sex-rate was, males 16·7, females 11·9 per 1,000.
Localised Death-rates. —During some recent years the death-rate of localised portions of
the borough, including the sanitary districts, was given in these reports. The rate as regards the
sub-districts and parliamentary divisions, was calculated on the basis of the population of those areas
enumerated at quinquennial census periods, corrected yearly for increase, and was closely approximate
to the true rate. But as regards the sanitary districts, only an estimated population and
an estimated rate could be given; the continuity of the statistics, moreover, was always liable to be
disturbed upon any change in the number of the said districts: four changes were made within a
few years. Having, in 1901, received from the Registrar-General a statement of the population of
the nine wards comprised in the borough, and regard being had to the improbability of any change
in the number, and to the fact that the population of the wards will be ascertainable at five-yearly
intervals, it was thought that the value of these localised statistics would be enhanced by adopting
the ward, in place of the sanitary district, as the unit for calculation of the death-rate, and this was
done.

The Corrected or True Death-rate in 1903.—The death-rate, 13·8 per 1,000, as
calculated above, is a crude or uncorrected one, not taking cognizance of the relative numbers of
the sexes, nor of the age-distribution of the population. Correction for these data involves addition
to, or subtraction from, the "recorded death-rate," as compared with the "standard death-rate." †
The necessity for such correction in the borough is obvious, having regard to the great excess of
females in the population, and to the lower death-rate in the female sex as compared with the rate
in the male sex. That excess in 1903 was approximately 38,760. The deaths among the 69,620
males were 1,160, and those among the 108,380 females 1,295. The crude death-rate in the male sex
was 16·7, as compared with the rate of 11·9 in the female sex. It is obvious, therefore, that if the
numbers of the sexes had been equal the death-rate would have been higher than the recorded rate.
The Registrar-General, in his annual summary, gives the "factor for correction for sex and agedistribution"
in the seventy-six great towns of England and Wales; and the Medical Officer of Health
of the London County Council, in his annual report for 1902, gave the corresponding factor for each
of the Metropolitan Boroughs. Corrected after the manner indicated, the death-rate of Kensington
in 1903 becomes, instead of 13·8, one of about 14·7 per 1,000; and the rate for London, as a whole,
about 16·5, instead of 15·7. The "true" death-rate is that which shows the mortality per 1,000
living of each sex at different age-periods, and this is shown for the borough in the subjoined
table:—
* This is the crude death-rate. The rate corrected for age and sex-distribution was 14·7 per 1,000. The "true deathrate
" is set out in the table at page 9.
† "The standard death-rate signifies the death-rate at all ages, calculated on the hypothesis that the rates for each sex
at each of twelve age-periods in each town were the same as in England and Wales, during the 10 years 1891-1900, the rate at
all ages in England and Wales during that period having been 18 21 per 1.000." (Registrar-General's Annual Summary).