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9
NATURAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF THE
DISTRICT.
Population and Houses.
The following estimate of population as supplied by the Registrar-General
has been adopted for the calculation of the death-rate and birth-rate of the
Borough for the year 1926—43,200.
The density of the population, according to the Census, 1921, was 107 persons
per acre contrasted with 60 persons per acre for the County of London.
The character of population shows wide and striking contrasts, including as it
does the occupants of expensive residential flats, the migratory population in
the large hotels, the student class in the Bloomsbury boarding houses, residents
in large commercial, social and philanthropic hostels, working class population
in model dwellings and tenement lodging houses (many of whom are very poor),
and a relatively large proportion of very poor people in common lodging houses.
Although the number of hotels and boarding houses keeps increasing, the
Borough is becoming less and less residential and more and more important as a
business centre. The number of factories, workshops, workplaces and offices
keeps increasing so that we are adding to our large and crowded day population
of London's workers.
The population in the 999 L.C.C. tenements in the Borough was estimated
at 3,490. The number of deaths was 36, a death-rate of 10.3 per 1,000,
considerably below the average death-rate for the whole of the Borough (12.5).
On the other hand the number of deaths of residents of Common Lodging
Houses in the Borough, which contain 920 beds, was 53, which, calculated on
the number of beds, was a rate of 57.3 per 1,000.
Registered Births and Birth-Rate.
The total number of births registered as occurring in the Borough was 330
(175 males and 155 females). Of these, 314 were legitimate and 16 illegitimate.
Corrected Births and Birth-Rate.
I received from the Registrar-General information of the births in outlying
institutions in London of 190 legitimate infants and 33 illegitimate infants whose
mothers were residents of the Borough. Eighteen of the births occurring in the
Borough, viz., 15 legitimate births and 3 illegitimate births, were infants of
mothers who were non-residents of the Borough.