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REPORT OF THE
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH.
Town Hall,
Hampstead, N.W.
25 th June, 1901.
To the Council of the Borough of Hampstead.
Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present the Annual Report on the health
and sanitary condition of the Borough of Hampstead for the year 1900.
Our population was found by the returns of the Census taken
March 31st, 1901, to he 81,942, a number less than had been previously
estimated. The proximity of the Easter holidays is, however, a
disturbing element in this Borough, when many well-to-do inhabitants
of Hampstead are from home.
In the decades 1861-71, and 1871-81, the increase was over 13,000;
in the decade 1881-91, we made a bound of over 22,000; but in the
decade 1891-1901 this latter rate of increase was not maintained, and it
fell to 13,517.
If we examine the two quinquennial periods 1891-96, and 1896-1901,
we shall see that a continual decrease is in progress, for whilst in the
first five years we obtained over 7,000 new inhabitants, in the last five
years we have only added 5,493 to our numbers. The probable
explanation of these facts may be that the available building land in
Hampstead is becoming much reduced in area and is increasing in value.
The number of inhabited houses was 12,027 (for this purpose each
occupied flat is considered to be a house) ; this gives an average of 6.7
persons per house, against an average of 7.1 persons per house for the
former decade. This reduction in the average mentioned is due to the
disturbing element of flat tenure, these dwellings often containing only
three or four persons.