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TWENTIETH ANNUAL REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH.
Being for the Year 1875.
To the Vestry of the Parish of St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington.
Gentlemen,
In pursuance of my usual practice the vital statistics in the
present Annual Report will be laid before your Vestry for the 52
weeks composing the registration year 1875, ended on the 1st
January, 1876. The advantage of this arrangement is that it
affords the means of comparing parochial and metropolitan
statistics. The Vestry year terminates on the 25th March
1876, and the ordinary sanitary statistics will be presented to that
date. Some subjects of interest will be dealt with to the date
of the report. For many purposes, in fact, the report is for
the year ending in July, 1876, as it seems to me a useless refinement
to defer speaking of matters worthy of notice until they
have lost all immediate interest, because they do not happen to
have fallen out within the period nominally embraced by the report,
With this brief explanation I pass on to observe that I have
again to chronicle a continuation of the altogether remarkable
increase of population, which for many years past has distinguished
the Parish of Kensington above all others in the Metropolis, a rate
of increase which seems likely to persist so long as there is any
room for building operations. This, however, at the present
rate of growth cannot be for many years, seeing that the increase
in the number of new houses brought into occupation has for a
considerable period averaged seven hundred annually. The number
newly brought into rating last year was 777, and this represents
an increase in the population of about 5,500 souls. Some portion
of this increase is due to the excess of births over deaths; but, as
will be shown later on, the larger part is due to immigration. For
reasons stated at length in former reports, the parish has a birthrate
considerably below the average in all England and in the
Metropolis; nevertheless, the number of children born last year
was 4,478; while the deaths registered from all causes were only
2,786, the excess of 90 over the number in 1875 being entirely
accounted for by the increase of population. The estimated
population at the middle of the year was 143,500; the gross
death-rate therefore was 19.4 per 1000 persons living, but after deducting
the deaths of non-parishioners that took place in the Hospital
for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest at Brompton, and
at St. Joseph's House, Notting Hill, the death-rate is lowered
to 18.1 per 1000. Allowance, however, should be made for the
deaths of parishioners in Hospitals and other places outside the
registration districts; a number probably equal to the deaths of