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The marriage-rate (i.e., the number of persons married to 1,000 living) was 18·7, compared
with 18·7, 19·2, and 18·2 in the three preceding years. The marriage-rate in England and Wales
was 15·2 per 1,000, compared with 15·9, 15·8, and 15·6, in the three preceding years, and an average
of 15·7 in the ten years 1894-1903. The rate in London was 17·0 per 1,000, compared with 17·6,
17·8, and 17·4, in the three preceding years; the average in the ten years 1894-1903 being 17·9.
BIRTHS AND BIRTH RATE.
The births registered were 3,448; viz., males, 1,719, and females, 1,729; the numbers being,
in the Town sub-district (which includes the Borough Infirmary), 2,934, and in the Brompton
sub-district, 514.
The births were 285 below the corrected decennial average (3,733); 156 of them were of
illegitimate children; they were 117 fewer than in the year 1903; and fewer by 593 than the
number in 1872 (4,041), when the population (127,400) was 51,100 less than in 1904.
The birth-rate, which of late years has been always considerably below that of London, has
been declining since 1868, in which year it was 33·1 per 1,000 persons living. In 1904 it was
19·3 per 1,000, and 1·5 below the decennial average (20·8).
The London birth-rate, 27·9 per 1,000, the same as that of England and Wales, and 1·9
below the decennial average, was lower than in any one of the ten preceding years—and was in fact
the lowest yet recorded.
The rate in the sub-districts was:—Town, 22·7, and Brompton, 10·5 per 1,000.
The births in North Kensington, i.e., the part of the borough north of Holland Park Avenue
and High Street, Notting Hill, were 2,492, and the birth-rate 27·1 per 1,000 living, or 0·8 below
the metropolitan rate.
The births in South Kensington, i.e., the part of the borough south of the streets named,
were 956, and the birth-rate 11·0, or 16·9 per 1,000 below the metropolitan rate.

The births exceeded the deaths by 908: in the Town sub-district they were 889 more in
number than the deaths: in the Brompton sub-district the excess was 19 only, without correction
for births at the infirmary.
In North Kensington the births exceeded the deaths by 863; in South Kensington to the
number of 45 only.

The deaths exceeded the births by 15 in Earl's Court Ward, and by 22 in Brompton Ward.
The registered births of illegitimate children in the borough as a whole were 156—five more
than in 1903. Of these births 147 were registered in the Town sub-district, which includes the
workhouse, at which institution out of 121 live births (males 59, females 62) 76 were illegitimate.
In the borough generally the illegitimate births formed 4·5 per cent. of total births as compared
with rates of 4·6, 4·6, and 4·2 in the three preceding years.