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
Battersea 1896
Report upon the public health and sanitary condition of the Parish of St. Mary, Battersea during the year1896
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This table shews that there were, at the date of the 1896 census,
22,421 inhabited houses in the parish, four hundred and ninetyfive
empty, two hundred and sixty-three used for business
purposes only and not inhabited at night, and one hundred and
seventy-two building. It may be safely assumed that most of the
empty houses have since been occupied, as well as the houses
which were then building, with the exception of some of the
flats recently erected, there being a demand for houses in Battersea
at present exceeding that of any previous period.
The persons were eighty thousand eight hundred and twentytwo
males; eighty-four thousand two hundred and ninety-three
females, and a total population of one hundred and sixty-five
thousand one hundred and fifteen. As the census of eighteen
hundred and ninety-one shewed a population of one hundred and
fifty thousand, four hundred and fifty eight, it follows that the
increase was fourteen thousand, six hundred and fifty seven, or
an average increase of two thousand, nine hundred and thirty-one
per annum.
It will be necessary, in order to calculate the birth, death
and other rates to arrive at the mean or average population of the
year 1896, which is obtained by adding a proportionate number,
one fourth of the year.s increase of population, so as to shew the
population estimated to exist on the middle day of the year,
which is one hundred and sixty-five thousand, eight hundred and
forty-seven. It will be observed that this is less than the estimated
mean population for 1895, the difference in rates however
being only a decimal fraction of 1.0 per thousand.
The mean population of the Metropolis for the year 1896,
as deducted from the census of that year, was 4,421,955.
The births registered in London in the year were 135,796,
which calculated upon the mean population given above is equal
to 30.7 per thousand. The births in Battersea registered during
the year were 5,358 in number, which, in a mean population of
165,847, will shew a birth rate of 32.3 per thousand for the year.