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103
REPORT
OF THE
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
FOR 1896.
To the Vestry of St. James and St. John, Clerkenwell,
Gentlemen,
In presenting my first Annual Report, I may remind you
that though my own appointment only dates from September 30th,
1896, I had for the previous seven months acted a substitute for
Dr. Griffith, your highly esteemed and respected late Medical
Officer of Health. With the exception therefore of the first
two months of the year, the facts on which this report is based
came under my personal notice.
The population of Clerkenwell, according to an enumeration
made at the end of the first quarter in 1896, is 66,202. At
the Census of 1891, it was returned as 66,216, so that for the
past five years it has been practically stationary, the only
difference being a loss of 14. In the previous inter-Census
period, that between 1881 and 1891, there had been a somewhat
rapid fall, the figures being in 1881, 69,019, and in 1891, 66,216,
a loss of 2,803 in ten years. The past five years show therefore
at least a temporary check to the diminution of population.
The number of deaths from all causes registered in Clerkenwell
during the year 1896, was 923. In 1895, the number was
1,038, and the annual average for the last ten years is 1,084,