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
Hornsey 1925
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hornsey, Borough of]
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| Area | 2,874 acres. | |
| Population (census 1921) | 87,691 | |
| Estimated population (middle of 1925) | 89,064 | |
| Number of inhabited houses (census 1921) | 17,333 | |
| Number of private families (census 1921) | 23,353 | |
| Rateable value | £728,410 | |
| Product of a penny rate | £2,944 | |
| Births | ||
| Male 6211 | Total | 1,214 |
| Female 593 | ||
| Birth-rate, 13.6 per 1,000 population | ||
| Deaths | ||
| Male 433 | Total | 946 |
| Female 513 | ||
| Death-rate, 10.6 per 1,000 population. Standardized death-rate, 9.5. | ||
| Death-rate of Infants under one year of age per 1,000 births | 43.6 | |
| Death-rate from Tuberculosis (all forms) per 1,000 living | 0.6 | |
| Death-rate from Zymotic Disease per 1,000 living | 0.13 | |
HISTORICAL.
Prior to 1867 the area which is now known as the Borough
of Homsey comprised the districts of Homsey and Highgate.
"Hornsey was still in the fields; Highgate was preparing for
the change which the railway then about to be opened would
soon inevitably bring about. Hornsey was ruled by three and
Highgate by four distinct and independent boards, each possessing
absolute power to tax the ratepayer, and each involving the
cost of separate management. The houses of the poor were overcrowded
and unhealthy. The roads were in a most unsatisfactory
condition, unlighted, unchannelled, the paths without
kerbs, and, worse than all, there was no system of disposing
of the sewage, such as we now happily have the advantage of;
every house stood over, or in close proximity to, a cesspool,
the effluent of which found its way through partial pipe drainage
into the field ditches and so ultimately into the River Lea."
It was to remedy this state of things and to regulate and control