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7
[1904
As to the number of persons living in these rooms, the census returns show
that whereas 180,330 persons resided in them in 1891, 196,423 occupied them
in 1901, being an increase of 16,093. These figures point to a very curious state
of affairs, for they show that while the increase of the people living in the rooms
had increased by only 16,093, the number of rooms themselves had increased
by 18,326. This was mainly, if not entirely, due to the largely increased
sanitary supervision that has been exercised in the borough since 1892, when
the Public Health (London) Act came into force, and the consequent
reluctance of the owners and agents of property of this class to let their
rooms to persons with large families lest they should be proceeded against for
overcrowding. This is well shown by the fact that the number of persons
living in one-room tenements was reduced from 28,189 in 1891 to 25,988 in
1901, being a decrease of 2,201.
The reduction in the average number of persons occupying each set of
tenements has not been confined to the one-roomed tenements alone, for each
class shows a decrease in the average number occupying them. Thus the
average for two-room tenements fell from 3.63 persons in 1891 to 3.46 in
1901, or 4.3 per cent.; the average for three-room tenements from 4.21 to
4.0, or 5 per cent.; the average for four-room tenements from 5.21 to 4.95
or 5 per cent. Thus the reduction of lodgers per room has been general, and
proves still further that overcrowding has not only been checked all round,
but actually reduced, a fact on which the Council is to be heartily congratulated.
In an appendix to this report a very important document is printed
—("Report on Overcrowding")—which has been under the consideration of
the Public Health Committee for some time. It is a careful analysis of
the complete census returns for Islington, which had been placed by the
London County Council at the disposal of the Medical Officer of Health, by
whom it has been made.
Density.—By the term "density" is meant the number of persons living
on each acre of the borough. In Islington it is 110 persons as compared with
62.1 in the county of London, where only seven boroughs show a higher
number, namely, Chelsea, 112.6, Holborn, 141.1, Finsbury, 168.0, Bethnal
Green, 171.5, Stepney, 172.1, Shoreditch, 177.8, and Southwark, 183.8.
Registration Sub-districts.—As might be expected these show considerable
variation in their densities, ranging from 79 persons to an acre in
Tufnell and 82 in Highbury, to 139 in Barnsbury and 139 in South-East
Islington. In Lower Holloway there are 101 persons to the acre, in Tollington,
110, and in Upper Holloway 121.