View report page

KEN 6
Borough of Kensington.
REPORT
OF THE
MEDICAL OFFICER oF HEALTH
For the Year 1900.
To the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors of the Borough Council.
Sir, and Gentlemen,
The vital and mortal statistics in this report relate to the period of fifty-two weeks,
commencing December 31st, 1899, and terminating December 29th, 1900, comprised in the
registration year 1900. During the year events of considerable importance occurred, viz., the
abolition of the late Vestry, and the creation of the Borough Council, which took effect on the ninth
day of November. This change was accompanied with numerous alterations in the boundaries of
Kensington and the adjacent Boroughs of Chelsea, Paddington and Hammersmith, and the City
of Westminster. For administrative purposes generally these changes date from the birth-day of
the Council. But so far as they relate to registration of births, deaths, and marriages, they did not
take effect until the 1st of April in the current year, the day immediately succeeding that appointed
for the decennial census. In order that there might be as little disturbance as possible in the
continuity of statistical information, it was arranged between the medical officers of the adjacent
Boroughs and myself that, during the currency of the registration year 1900, the vital and mortal
statistics should be completed for the several districts as delimited before the London Government
Act, 1899, came into operation; and that with the commencement of the registration year 1901
these statistics should be compiled for the several Boroughs as newly constituted. A corresponding
arrangement was made with respect to notification of infectious diseases. The interchanges of
boundaries with the other Boroughs named, were set out in detail in the final report of the Special
London Government Committee of the late Vestry (vide Minutes, page 604).

The net gain in number of premises is 434: the increase of population, estimated by the RegistrarGeneral,
is approximately 3,000 : the actual increase will not be known until after the census.*
Various powers previously exercised by the London County Council were transferred on
9th November, under the provisions of the London Government Act, to the Borough Council, with
respect to dairies and milk, and with regard to slaughter-houses and offensive businesses. There
was also a considerable displacement of premises, gain and loss, of workshops, workplaces, laundries,
&c., where women are employed, under the supervision of the Council's lady inspector, to which
reference is made in that officer's annual report (page 48). But the most important change brought
about by the Act, and also by the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1900, was that which
enables the Borough Council, by adopting Part III. of the Housing of the Working Classes Act,
1890, to obtain concurrent powers with the County Council and to become a Local Authority under
that Part—a change brought about largely as the result of action taken, on my advice, by the late
*Vide Appendix III.—note on Census of 1901, page 105.