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
Stepney 1915
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Stepney]
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REPORT
OF THE
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH AND PUBLIC ANALYST
FOR THE YEAR 1916.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Metropolitan Borough of Stepney.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have much pleasure in submitting to you my fifteenth Annual Report,
which deals with the Vital and Sanitary Statistics of the Borough of Stepney
for the year 1915.
Population.
The resident population of the Borough of Stepney estimated to the middle of the year was 265,731, distributed as follows:—
| Limehouse District | 50,740 |
| St. George-in-the-East | 45,173 |
| Mile End Old Town | 107,935 |
| Whitechapel District | 61,883 |
| 265,731 |
This estimated population is less than that of the previous year, and is not
so approximately correct as in previous years. As stated by the Registrar-General,
"men of military age have been largely drafted to military training centres or sent
abroad with the Army, and the remainder of the male adult population, as well
as, to a less extent, the female population, has migrated on an unprecedented scale
into areas other than those in which it was enumerated at the last census.
Under these circumstances estimates of local population based on the census
returns were clearly inadmissible, and it became necessary to search for a
substitute. Fortunately this was ready to hand in the shape of the National
Register, which referred to a date only six weeks removed from that for which
estimates were required, viz.:—the middle of the year 1915. No doubt this does
not form a perfect record, as it is known that a number of persons escaped
registration. From investigations, however, which have been made in another