View report page

CAM 20
Camberwell
Report of the medical Officer of health.
In my report for the year 1919 I set out the physical features
and general character of the district. I do not therefore propose to
repeat them except in reference to changes which may have taken
place since then. At the census of 1911 the enumerated population
was 261,328, and that estimated by the Registrar-General for 1920
is 284,995, while that of the civilian population which is used for
the calculation of the death rate is taken at 284,712. It is now ten
years from the date of the late census; this coupled with the shifting
and disturbances of the people which have taken place during that
period render an estimation of extreme difficulty. I am still
inclined to think that 284,000 odd is in excess of the true number,
in the same way that I suspected an over-estimate last year; but
by the time this report appears in print all conjecture will have
passed away, the actual enumeration of figures will have appeared,
and it will be possible to estimate the value of the various prophecies
which have appeared.
The difficulties arising in the consideration of the number of
inhabitants of the Borough are accentuated when one comes to the
Wards and Registration districts. I therefore propose to defer any
reference to the populations of these divisions with the corresponding
estimations of the birth and death rates till next year, when it will
be possible to work on the figures of the recent census, rather than
on a hazardous opinion accurate enough in 1911, but now quite
unreliable. Only in the case of the infantile mortality, which is
based on the relation between the actual number of births registered
and that of the deaths of children under one year, is it possible to
make a comparison which has any value.
The total number of births registered in Camberwell was
7,205; adding on the excess of children of Camberwell mothers
born outside, over those of non-Camberwell mothers born inside the
Borough, there appears the grand total of 7,505, which is distributed
among the various registration districts according to the following
cable:—
BIRTHS IN CAMBERWELL AND SUR-DISTRICTS.
North-west
Camberwell.
North
Camberwell.
Year.
East
Dulwich.
Borough.
Dulwich.
Peckham.
584
165
1,166
825*
1918
4,186
632-814
1,467
1919
186
1,398
1,360
5,183
772
7,505
237
2,064
2,080
1920
1,114
2,010
*South Peckham, North Peckham St. George's.