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The Royal Borough of Kensington.
REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
For the Year 1901.
To the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors of the Borough Council,
Sir, and Gentlemen,
The vital and mortal statistics in this report, for the period of fifty-two weeksDecember
30th, 1900, to December 28th, 1901—comprised in the registration year 1901, have
been calculated upon the authentic basis of population of the Borough contained in the RegistrarGeneral's
Report on the Census of 1901, as it relates to the County of London. The statistical
tables therein, for London as a whole, and for each of the constituent Boroughs, are given under
the headings of Area, Houses, and Population; and for the Registration Sub-districts, the Parliamentary
divisions, and the several Wards.
Registration District and Sub-Districts.—The "Kensington" Registration District
(No. 1 B in the Registrar-General's list) comprises two sub-districts., Kensington Town (hereinafter
for brevity referred to as Town), and Brompton. The Town sub-district comprises all
that portion of the Borough north of Kensington High Street and Kensington Road, together
with a large area south of that main thoroughfare, the dividing line running, from west to east,
along Pembroke-road, Stratford-road, and south of the workhouse, then through Cornwallgardens
to Queen's-gate-place, and thence northwards so as to include Queen's-gate (west side).
The remainder of the Borough, south of the line, forms the sub-district of Brompton.
The Parliamentary Division's are two in number, North Kensington and South
Kensington1, High Street, Notting Hill, and Holland Park Avenue forming the line of demarcation.
The Wards are nine in number, of which four Golborne, St. Charles, Norland, and
Pembridge, are in (and constitute) the Parliamentary Division of North Kensington and fiveHolland,
Earl's-court, Queen's-gate, Brompton, and Redcliffe are in (and constitute) the Parliamentary
Division of South Kensington.
Area.—The Borough comprises an area of 2,291.1 statute acres, an addition of 101.1 acres
having accrued from the changes in boundaries brought about by the London Government Act,
1899. Of this addition all but 1.8 acres belongs to the Town sub-district, the area of which
(including 3.8 acres of inland water) is 1,596.3 acres; the area of Brompton being 694'8 acres.
The acreage of the wards is not given in the census report.
Inhabited Houses.—The inhabited houses enumerated March 31st, 1901, were 22,131; in
the Town sub-district 15,140; in Brompton 6,991. The number of houses in the several wards
is shown in the table at page 5. The Registrar-General states that " for census purposes a
block of model dwellings or residential mansions is counted as a single house, whatever may
be the number of separate tenements." This fact explains the discrepancy between the
enumerated houses and the number estimated in the annual summary in the last report for
1901-" about 23,000." The latter number comprises the separately rated tenements in blocks
of artisans dwellings and residential mansions. In the Borough, as a whole, there are 384
instances of what may be called the compound house; i.e., blocks of buildings having, each, one
outer door, but containing as many as 2,471 separately-rated tenements. A concrete illustration
of this mode of occupation may be cited: Campden-houses in Peel-street, consisting of seven
blocks, with the same number of outer doors, are counted as seven houses by the RegistrarGeneral,
whilst for rating purposes they rank as 133 houses.
Uninhabited Houses.—The uninhabited houses, i.e., houses not in rating, were 1,850,
709 of them (in the Town sub-district 419, in Brompton 290) being "in occupation" by caretakers;
and 1,141 (in the Town sub-district 659, in Brompton 482) "not in occupation."