Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Annual report on the public health of Finsbury for the year 1913
This page requires JavaScript
132
Sutton Street (4), Noble Street (4), Southampton Street (3), St.
Helena Street (3), Warner Street (3), Baldwin Street (2), Mitchell
Street (2), Muriel Street (21), Rodney Street (2), and Rodney
Place (2).
In the area covcred by systematic house to house inspection,
1,896 families occupied 4,051 rooms, or 213 rooms per family. Of
the total number of rooms inspected 4.7 per cent, were empty;
this shows that the crowding- is not due to lack of available
accommodation. Examples of crowding and overcrowding' are
appended:—
Illustrative Examples.—
1. A family consisted of 7 persons, the father, mother, boys
4, 2, girls 11, 6 years, and a baby 6 weeks. They rented 2 rooms,
but sublet the back room to a lodger. They were in arrears with
their rent, and latterly paid no rent.
Thus the family, although nominally occupying 2 rooms, really
lived and slept in one room of 1,400 cubic feet, which contained
one double and one single bed. They were said to have sub-let
one room so as to obtain a little money to pay as a deposit when
ejccted and about to negotiate elsewhere for a fresh letting.
2. A family consisting of the father, mother, a girl 21 years,
and boys 16, 12, 9, 7 years occupied one room for living and sleeping.
The room was incompletely divided into two parts by a
wooden partition set up by the landlord.
3. A very small room, containing only 490 cubic feet of air
space, was occupied for living and sleeping by the father, mother,
and two girls, 7 and 3 years. It contained a single bed, 6 feet by
3 feet 6 inches. "There was hardly room for them to turn
round."
4. The family consisted of the father, mother, and girls, 16,
5 and 4 years. They occupied one room, of 1,130 cubic feet, for
living and sleeping. The room contained one double bed and a
chair bed. The father was a plate polisher, and had been out of
work for 2 months. The mother earned 5s. a week as a charwoman.
The girl 16 years slept on a chair bed.