London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Kensington 1912
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington Borough]
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vital statistics.
The Metropolitan Borough of Kensington as constituted under the London Government Act,
1899, covers an area of 2,291 acres, and is co-extensive with the Civil Parish and Registration
District of the same name. The line of demarcation formed by Holland Park Avenue, High
Street, Notting Hill Gate, and the Bayswater Road divides the Borough into approximately equal
halves described in previous years and in this Report as North and South Kensington respectively.
The Borough is further sub-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 £2,426,919. The product of a rate at one penny in the £ is £9,369.
The Census figures for the several wards have now been published, and are given in the following Table:—
| Census Population,1901. | Census Population,1911. | Increase | Decrease | Difference per cent. | Estimated Population,1912. | |
| The Borough | 176,628 | 172,317 | -4,311 | -2.5 | 172,000 | |
| North Kensington | 91,018 | 88,100 | -2,918 | - 3. | 87,885 | |
| South Kensington | 85,610 | 84,217 | -1,393 | - 1.7 | 84,115 | |
| St. Charles | 21,937 | 22,737 | + 800 | + 3.5 | 22,798 | |
| Golborne | 26,307 | 25,567 | - 740 | - 2.9 | 25,513 | |
| Norland | 23,449 | 21,187 | -2,262 | -10.7 | 21,018 | |
| Pembridge | 19,325 | 18,609 | - 716 | - 3.8 | 18,556 | |
| Holland | 20,391 | 20,263 | - 128 | - 0.6 | 20,254 | |
| Earl's Court | 18,064 | 17,618 | - 446 | - 2.5 | 17,585 | |
| Queen's Gate | 14,284 | 14,286 | + 2 | — | 14,286 | |
| Redcliffe | 18,713 | 19,101 | + 388 | + 2.0 | 19,131 | |
| Brompton | 14,158 | 12,949 | -1,209 | - 9.3 | 12,859 | |
In South Kensington it is satisfactory to note that in two wards there has been no decline,
in Holland and Earl's Court the decline has been insignificant, whilst Brompton, with a decrease
of 1,209 or close on 10 per cent., is the only ward in the South in which a serious loss has occurred.
The most remarkable feature of the figures for North Kensington is the inequality of the losses in
the poorest areas. Both in Norland and Golborne the large number of empty tenements is very
noticeable, but whilst the former ward has suffered a loss of 2,000, or more than 10 per cent. the
loss in Golborne has only amounted to 740, or less than 3 per cent. The increase in the population
in St. Charles' Ward has been due to the erection and occupation of new houses on the St.
Quintin's Park Estate. A fall in the excessive rents which the working classes are obliged to pay
for their lodgings might be expected to follow in districts where the number of persons is
diminishing, but it is to be feared that the advantages of such a result are unfortunately likely to
be outweighed by the necessity for accepting undesirable tenants of the lowest class which the
necessity for accepting lower rents usually involves.