View report page

3
VITAL STATISTICS.
The Metropolitan Borough of Kensington covers an area of 2,291 acres, and is co-extensive
with the Civil Parish and Registration District of the same name. The Borough is divided
into nine wards. South Kensington includes the wards of Holland, Earl's Court, Queen's
Gate, Redcliffe and Brompton, and is co-extensive with the South Kensington Parliamentary
Division. North Kensington, containing the wards of St. Charles, Golborne, Norland and
Pembridge, is not. co-terminous with the Parliamentary Division of the same name, in that it
extends northwards to include an area of 100 acres with a population of 3,900 persons which is
still allotted, for Parliamentary purposes only, to Chelsea. The rateable value of the Borough
is £2, 446,743. The product of a rate at one penny in the £ is £10,180.
In the comparison of vital statistics for different districts, those for Kensington are sometimes
taken as representing the experience of a good class residential area. For the information of
persons who are not familiar with local conditions, it may therefore be stated that it is only
the figures for South Kensington which can be interpreted in the above mentioned sense. The
northern half of the Borough touches the Harrow Road in the north and the Latimer Road on
the East. In each of the four northern wards there are areas of extreme poverty, and the
Golborne Ward may be taken as an example of a district in which practically the whole population
consists of the working classes, and includes large numbers of semi-destitute persons who have
no regular employment.
Population .—On the assumption that the decline which took place in the intercensal period
1901-1911, will be somewhat less marked in the current decade, the population of the Borough in
the middle of the year 1915 is estimated to have numbered 171,100,* and it is on this figure that
the birth-rate and the death rates for the year have been calculated.

Marriages.—The marriages celebrated during the year numbered 2,126. The number of
marriages celebrated annually and the annual marriage rate since 1856 were given in the annual
report for 1908, Appendix II., Table A, page 60.
Births. —The number of births registered in the district was 2,888, but this figure does not
include 186 infants born of Kensington mothers in Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital and other
institutions beyond the Borough. The total number of births belonging to the Borough was.
therefore, 3,074. The birth-rate expressed as the number of births per 1,000 of the population was
180. Arranged as to sex and legitimacy the births were as follows:-
Male.
Female.
Total.
Legitimate
1,434
1,504
2,938
Illegitimate
67
136
69
Total
1,571
3,074
1,503
Still births are not registered and are therefore not included in the above figures.
The civil population is estimated by the Registrar-General as being 155,795, thus showing that more than 15,000 of the
inhabitants of Kensington have joined the Naval and Military Services.