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Camberwell
CAM 17
Report of the Medical Officer of health.
To The Worshipful the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Borough of Camberwell.
Gentlemen,
The population of the area comprised in the jurisdiction of the
London County Council at the middle of the year 1913 is estimated
by the Registrar General to amount to 4,518,191. This is about
1,500 less than that given as the corresponding number of 1912,
which itself was lower than 1911 by nearly a similar amount. As
calculated by the Registrar-General, the estimated population of
London has declined to this since the enumeration of 1901.
The probable explanation of this fall is that the state of things
which used to obtain in the City only has now spread to the
adjacent parts of the centre of London, whither people in great
number travel each morning from even far-away localities to which
they return home at night.
The number of births registered in London during the 53 weeks
ending January 3rd, 1914, was 112,637, compared with the 110,353
of 1912. This, however, is the number for 52 weeks only, so that
there is no substantial difference between these two years in the
figures week by week. The birth-rate for the year is stated to be
24·5, which is identical with that for the previous year, which was
then said to be the lowest on record since the introduction of civil
registration.
The deaths registered for the same period and within the same
area were 65,030, which number excludes 3,412 which were those
registered of persons who died in London but whose usual place of
residence was outside the county, while those of Londoners who
died in the metropolitan institutions outside London are added.
Among these would be included the deaths in the larger lunatic
asylums and also those institutions under the control of the
Metropolitan Asylums Board.
The number of inhabitants of Camberwell at the middle of
1913 is provisionally reckoned as 261,805 by the Registrar-General,
an increase of 214 over that of the previous year. By the other
method of estimation the population of Camberwell at the same
period is taken to be 264,167, an increase of 531 over the previous
year. This estimate has as its basis the number of persons that
were enumerated per assessment at the taking of the last census
in 1911. It is not the usual way of calculating the increase in
the population of a community, but we have found that when it
has been possible to test the estimate by actual comparison with
the enumeration, the figures calculated by this method more nearly
approximate the actual numbers than those which have been arrived
at by other means. If, however, these be even approximately
correct, there must have been a great increase in the emigration