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19
by several. But where a private house has been structually divided
into separate portions within the meaning of the definition, each
portion is regarded as a separate unit. It has been possible in this
census to indicate the extent to which houses originally built for the
occupation of single families have been structurally divided to provide
separate and independent occupation for two or more families.
The average size of private families (persons) in the London
County has fallen from 4.15 in 1911 to 3.79 in 1921, a drop of 9 per
cent. In 1921, 147,797 private families, comprising 262,363 persons
were living in one room, that is, there were 1.78 persons per family,
and each person had .56 of one room. Such London families numbered
13.2 per cent. of the whole.
Twenty.three and one.half per cent. of all families had three rooms
and in such houses each person had .78 of a room to himself.
The Registrar.General gives an explanatory footnote which is
timely—"The ratio of two or more persons per room was selected in
the Census Reports for 1911 and earlier years as an appropriate comparative
index figure for the purpose of measuring the prevalence and
distribution of overcrowding conditions. Since, however, that ratio has
been commented upon as though it had been propounded as an absolute
standard or a definition of overcrowding, it may be well to observe that
its use in the census statistics implies no judgment whatever as to what
in fact constitutes overcrowding."
The fall from 4.15 persons per family to 3.79 in the last ten years
is due to the increase in the marriage rate in association with a heavily
reduced birth.rate and an increased (allowing for war deaths) death.rate.
The reduction in the size of families does not abate the demands of
individual families for separate dwellings. Nearly two.thirds of the
families occupy a portion only of a structurally separate dwelling each.
The average unit of occupation (rooms) has decreased from 3.56 rooms
per family in 1911 to 3.38 in 1921. It is only in families numbering
one or two persons that an improvement has been recorded as regards
density standards in homes, whilst a deterioration has taken place for
all other sizes of family.
Measured in terms of families per dwelling, housing pressure is
greatest in St. Pancras where the average of families to each dwelling
is 2.3, and in Islington 2.12, but in these boroughs the dwellings are
larger and the families smaller than in the rest of the County. One
lodger in a boarding house counts as one family. Tbe following table
illustrates the housing of private families in 13 Metropolitan boroughs
and the City.