View report page

156
6. Underground Rooms—Under Sections 96 and 97 of
the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, there have been 27
nuisances abated in respect to the occupation of underground
rooms or kitchens.
General Conclusions.—As we have seen in a previous
report*:—
1. The population of Finsbury reached its zenith between
1851 and 1861.
2. The number of inhabited houses were greatest in 1851.
3. Since these respective dates there has been a steady and
uninterrupted decline both in houses and population.
But whereas the population has declined 21 per cent., the
number of inhabited houses has declined 31 per cent.
The chief decline in the houses occurred between 1881 and
1891, whilst the chief decline in the population took place in the
decennium between 1871 and 1881. These changes occurred in
the most marked degree in those portions of the Borough in
immediate proximity to the boundary of the City of London.
Such changes inevitably resulted in overcrowding, and there
was, in fact, a greater number of persons per house in Finsbury
in 1901 (10.9), as compared with London as a whole (8.0).||
From these figures it is clear (i) that the population of
Finsbury is a declining one ; (ii) that the density of population
per acre is a declining one ; but (iii) that the density per house is
an increasing one. Time and the ordinary process of events, if
coupled with strict sanitary supervision and enforcement of the
Public Health Act, will ultimately solve the insanitary Housing
problem in the Borough. But in the meantime, and during the
transition period, the problem is an acute one.
There are two further points which must not be ignored if the
whole question is to receive adequate consideration. First, in a
Borough like Finsbury, the industrial classes may be divided in
° Report on the Housing Question in Finsbury (1901) pp. 58-67.
|| I bid pp. 64 and 65.