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
Stoke Newington 1894
Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the last three-quarters of the year 1894
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With these precautions the health of parishioners should be exceptionally
good, for the district has the following undoubted
physical advantages It has a sufficient altitude and exposure to
favour a desirable amount of air renewal; it possesses, as to its
north, east, and southern borders, excellent provisions for natural
drainage, and it contains within its area open spaces, or " lungs,"
to the extent of 17 per cent, of its total acreage. Further, whereas
the number of people to the acre in the Southern Division of the
parish is higher than one would prefer to see it, it is low for the
whole of the parish.
There remain two other factors which favourably affect the
health returns of the parish. None of those trades or manufactories
are carried on which are known to be specially unhealthy, and
there is an almost complete absence of what one may call extreme
poverty. Nowhere in Stoke Newington is there to be seen the
same indications of extreme poverty that are encountered in some
areas of most Metropolitan districts; there is, indeed, very little
house property in the parish that is available for such class tenants,
and that they are rare in Stoke Newington is borne out by the
fact that even during the trying times of this last winter we never
had more than 15 parishioners upon our " Unemployed Register."
With these undoubted advantages Stoke Newington should
continue to present a favourable health record.
Population.—The population of Stoke Newington in 1881 was
22,781, in 1891 it had grown to 30,936. The increase of population
between 1881 and 1891 amounted, therefore, to 8,155; now if
this rate of increase is assumed to have been maintained up to the
middle of 1894, one arrives, by a logarithmetrical calculation, at an
estimated population of 31,172.
By a careful consideration of all the facts, however, I am led
to believe that this would be an over-estimation, for the increase
which forms the basis for such a calculation may not have been
maintained—seeing that it took place during a period when there