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The Registrar.General states that "the rate in 1907 was lower than in any other year on
record," and that "this was mainly due to the showery and exceedingly cool summer." He adds
that, if the "proportions in the several quarters are compared with the respective decennial
averages, it will at once be apparent how very largely the saving of infant life was due to the
reduced mortality experienced in the third quarter of the year; for while the mortality in the first
quarter was 4 per 1,000 above the average, and only 10 or 12 per 1,000 below the average in the
second and fourth quarters, it was no less than 107 per 1,000 below the average in the third
quarter."
Table A, Appendix II. (page 108) gives the number of deaths under one year in Kensington,
and the proportion to 1,000 registered births for each of the thirty.seven years, 1871.1907, during
my tenure of office. The figures for the 12 years, 1896.1907, have been corrected by the addition
of the births to Kensington mothers at Queen Charlotte's Hospital to those occurring, and
registered, in the borough.
The deaths of children over one year and under five years of age were 255; the deaths under
five years, therefore, were 688, compared with 756, 757, and 693, in the preceding three years, being
equal to 201 per 1,000 births; the relative proportion in London, as a whole, being 188.
The deaths of illegitimate children under five, 63, 94, and 79, in the preceding three years
respectively, were 57 in 1907; of which 51 were registered in the Town sub.district, and 6
in Brompton. These deaths were equal to 28.5 per cent, on the 200 births registered as
illegitimate. Of the 57 children 5 only survived the first year of life.
Senile Mortality.—At sixty years of age and upwards, there were 903 deaths, as compared
with 883, 873, and 934, in the preceding three years respectively. These deaths were equivalent to
365 per 1,000 deaths at all ages. The relative proportion in all London was 313 per 1,000.
District Rates of Mortality.—The table below shows (inter alia) the death.rate
in the sub.districts, the parliamentary divisions, and the wards, for the year, and also for each of the
thirteen four.weekly periods covered by the monthly reports. As usual the rate was far higher in
the Town sub.district (15.2 per 1,000) than in the Brompton sub.district (9.8), and the same
observation applies to the parliamentary division of North Kensington (17.0), compared with the
southern division of the borough (10.2). In all of the wards in North Kensington, the death.rate
exceeded that of the borough as a whole (13.7 per 1,000), whereas in each of the wards in South
Kensington it was more or less largely below the rate for the borough as a whole.