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VITAL STATISTICS
Population.--The Registrar-General's mid-year estimate of the population of the Borough for
the year 1954 is 105,600.
In the report for 1953 it was noted that the percentage of persons aged 70 years and over in
the Borough population had risen from 3.4 per cent, at the 1901 census to 6.2 per ccnt. at the 1951 census
The Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, commenting on the age distribution of the
population, states in his annual report for 1953 :—
" One of the commonly held falacies is that as time goes on the proportion of the population in
the normal working ages will be materially reduced. While this proportion may in fact become slightly
smaller, the main long-term change to be expected is that there will be on the one hand more old people
and on the other, fewer children in the population. We are in fact approaching the age distribution
to be expected in a stationary population with relatively low mortality.
One factor contributing to the changes in age distribution is the rapid decline in the birth rate
since the beginning of the century and its recent tendency to settle at a level just sufficient for each
generation to replace itself. The other main factors are the greatiy increased expectation of life of the
infant at birth, the contemporaneous and accelerated fall in the infant mortality rate and the remarkable
decline in mortality among children at later years. Under the conditions ruling in 1838-54, a male
infant at birth might have been expected to live rather less than 40 years. By the period 1871-80,
his expectation of life had increased to 41.4 years. Between the periods 1881-90 and 1910-12, it again
increased to 49.2 years and between 1920 and 19:52 to an expectation of more than 67 years of life.
This does not mean, however, that old people are living much longer, and any impression that
they are, is a further misconception which is not borne out by the statistics. Considering the expectation
of life of males again, we find that the expectation of life at 65 years of age was 10.8 years in 1838-54
and 12.0 years in 1952. Thus old people are not living appreciably longer. What is happening is that
many more of us are now attaining the age of 65 than was the case formerly and it is only in this sense
that we are becoming an older population; we are still a very long way from becoming a nation of
centenarians."
Rateable Value.—The rateable value of the Borough for 1954 was £1,046,998 and the sum
represented by a penny rate was £4,260.
Inhabited Houses. —According to the rate books, the number of inhabited houses at the end
of the year was 29,308. In relation to the estimated population, this yields an average of approximately
4 persons per house.
Live Births.—The number of live births in 1954 was 1,185 as compared with 1,268 in 1953.
The birth rate was 11.2 per 1,000 population. The birth rate will vary, apart from other causes, according
to the age and sex distribution of the population, and to permit of a true comparison with other areas,
the Registrar-General supplies for each local sanitary authority what is called the area comparability
factor. When this is applied to the above Borough birth rate, the result is 11.1 as compared with the
birth rate of 15.2 per 1,000 population for England and Wales.
The number of illegitimate births was 43, as compared with 49 in 1953. The proportion of live
births which were illegitimate, expressed as a percentage of the total live births, is shown below for
recent years
1925-29 3.9 1950 4.1
1930-34 3.2 1951 3.6
1935-39 2.9 1952 4.9
1940_44 4.6 1953 3.9
1945_49 5.1 1954 3.6
The majority of births continue to occur in hospital.
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