London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
View report page
Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Kensington 1914
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington Borough]
This page requires JavaScript
3
VITAL STATISTICS
The Metropolitan Borough of Kensington covers an area of 2,291 acres, and is co-extetisive
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 £2,443,249. 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.
| Census Population, 1911 | Families or separate occupiers, Census 1911 | Estimsted Population, 1914. | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In private families. | Inmates of Institutions. | Totals. | Families, | Institu tions. | |||||
| Cols. 1 | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | |||
| 3,254 | 65 | ||||||||
| St. Charles | 6 | ||||||||
| 377 | 6,006 | ||||||||
| 614 | |||||||||
| 30 | |||||||||
| 927 | 3,972 | 39 | |||||||
| Redeliffe | 18,109 | 992 | 33 | ||||||
| 38,118 | |||||||||
The figures in the above Table show the number of private households or families and the
number of persons living in such households in the Census year 1911 (vide cols. 5 and 2). Column
6 gives the number of "institutions, large private establishments, etc." in each area, the number of
inmates being shown in column 3. The last column shows the estimated populations for each area
in the middle of the year 1914. The natural increase in the population during the year by excess
of births over deaths amounted to 864, the net estimated diminution being accounted for as in
past years by the excess of emigration over immigration.
The population for each ward has been calculated on the assumption that the rise or fall in
the last intercensal period has continued at a slightly reduced rate.