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37
[1911
DEATHS.
The year 1911 must undoubtedly be considered a healthy year, so far as
Islington is concerned, for in seventy years the annual mortality in proportion
to the population, which is to say the death-rate, has been as low on only three
previous occasions: a fact which may be learned from Table H in the
Appendix.
The deaths numbered 4,810*, or 287 more than in the preceding year;
they were on the other hand 227 below the average of 5,027 which obtained
during the decade 1901-10.
The mortality returns have varied very little during the last ten years,
while during the last four the death-rate has been 13.93 per 1,000 of the
population (1908), 14.96 (1909), 13.79 (1910), and 14.70 (1911). The mortality
at the present time compares more favourably with the past records than is at
first apparent, for the recent census (1911) has disclosed the fact that the age
distribution of the population has changed in a manner unfavourable to a low
death-rate; that is to say there is now a larger proportion of old people in
the borough than formerly, and, therefore, a lesser proportion of young people.
This alteration in the age incidence has been going on Steadily since 1881, and
its extent has been dwelt on in a preceding part of this report (pp. 10-16). How
it has effected the death-rate remains to be told.
The change during the last twenty years will now be discussed; but first
it is necessary to show what the age incidence of the population would have
been in 1911, if it had continued the same as it was in 1891. In order to do
this the subsequent tabular statement has been prepared. It shows, for nine age
periods, and for males and females, the number of people who would have
been living in Islington at each of these groups of ages, if there had been no
alteration in the proportion of persons living at each of them.
*There were also 56 "Transferable Deaths," that is deaths of persons who having a fixed or
usual residence in the borough, died in a district other than that in which they resided; and these
were transmitted by the Registrar General sometime after the close of each quarter. These deaths
however, have not been added to the total deaths registered by 'he local Registrars, but are duly
accounted for in the Local Government Board return, Table I. in the Appendix of this report.