London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Lewisham 1953
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Lewisham Borough]
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108
It will be seen that the number of males exceeds the number of
females as far as age 14, but from then onwards the number of females
exceeds the number of males in an almost continually increasing ratio
until in the age group 85 to 89 there are more than double the number
of females to males (624 compared with 273). It will also be seen that
there were 20 females over the age of 95 and 7 males of that age group.
Ages of juveniles
With regard to persons under the age of 21, there were 31,533 males and 32,288 females in Lewisham. The distribution in the various ages was as follows :—
| Age last birthday | Males | Females |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1,734 | 1,655 |
| 1 | 1,855 | 1,749 |
| 2 | 2,022 | 1,805 |
| 3 | 2,197 | 2,162 |
| 4 | 2,430 | 2,325 |
| 5 | 1,761 | 1,700 |
| 6 | 1,839 | 1,682 |
| 7 | 1,595 | 1,581 |
| 8 | 1,689 | 1,565 |
| 9 | 1,327 | 1,287 |
| 10 | 1,244 | 1,307 |
| 11 | 1,371 | 1,364 |
| 12 | 1,316 | 1,317 |
| 13 | 1,451 | 1,328 |
| 14 | 1,326 | 1,347 |
| 15 | 1,339 | 1,311 |
| 16 | 1,294 | 1,295 |
| 17 | 1,207 | 1,223 |
| 18 | 836 | 1,363 |
| 19 | 648 | 1,447 |
| 20 | 1,052 | 1,475 |
From this table the preponderance of females is only obvious at
ages 18 and 19 and to a lesser extent at age 20. This is presumably
because of national service.
Distribution by marital condition and age, and sex ratios
In Lewisham 40.3 of the population were single (compared with
42.4 for the whole county), 52.3 were married (49 for the county) and
7.4 were widowed or divorced (8.6 for the county). 8.8 percent of the
Lewisham population were aged 0.4 (as against 8.1 for the county),
12.9 were aged 5.14 (as against 11.5), 43.2 were aged 15.44 (as
against 45.3), 24.5 were aged 45.64 (as against 24.0) and 10.6 were
aged 65 and over (as against 11.1 for the county). It will be seen therefore
that Lewisham has a rather larger than average number of children