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While, therefore, the Births and Influx of Immigrants added
15,079 to the Hackney Road, Green, and Church Sub-Divisions,
the same causes produced an increase only of 912 in
the Town; being less by 2423 than the actual excess of the
Births. For the entire Parish, the decennial increase was
2173* per 100 per annum; which ratio brings us up from
90,193,† to 100,000 in 1856. And as the people of the
Metropolis number 2,565,579, it follows that one out of every
25'6 of the Great London Family lives at Bethnal Green.
Social and Sanitary state of the Population.
By the New Metropolis Management Act, the Parish is divided
into Four Wards:—North, South, East and West. In
these, its "medical topography" and social condition are very
diverse. The North Ward contains many excellent houses,
and several of the wealthier and more dlite of the residents in
Bethnal Green. In the Hackney Road portion, Mr. Murray
reports, that "deaths are comparatively very infrequent."
Near the Canal, it is less healthy, and, moreover, is dirty and
damp. So, too, are the sites of its original ponds. Fortunately—in
so far as the fenny soil is concerned—the Imperial
Gas Company have taken much of that ground, which they
are extensively improving and draining. Along Ann's Place
runs a black arched-over ditch;‡—to this day, I believe, a
fertile source of disease. Generally, this division is not overcrowded;
unless in and about Cambridge Circus where,
Mr. Welch informs me, "Fever and Diarrhoea have been
very prevalent from drains running immediately under the
* In the 9th Annual Report, page 2, the Registrar-General, alluding to the
Increase of Population, Immigration, and Emigration, says, "With so many
unknown elements, the equation of increase becomes indeterminate, and as near
an approximation to the true rate of increase is obtained by using the rate which
prevailed in the years 1831-41, as by any other method that can be devised."
I have consequently calculated the rate prevailing in 1841-51, and the subsequent
increase therefrom.
† Males, 44,081; Females, 46,112—or 20,547 Families or Occupiers.
‡ This was open in 1849, and "near to its edge," in Shoreditch, "many
deaths occurred from Cholera."—Notes on Cholera, p. 193.