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rent to provide sufficient food for the family, and the health of the
children suffers seriously as a consequence. From some of these
cases come the applications of expectant or nursing mothers and
children under 5 years of age for free milk and food. The need for
such assistance exists not only among the unemployed and the lower
paid workers, but also among the reasonably paid workers whose
wages should and would be sufficient for their needs if the rents they
are called upon to pay were not unduly high. This is a serious
matter, affecting as it does the larger field of general public health,
for a lowered vitality of the population renders much more likely the
occurrence of illness and disease with their sequelae.
The table of results of routine medical inspection of entrant
children in Hampstead to elementary schools which is shown in each
Annual Report indicates the striking fact that, while the standard of
clothing and boots and cleanliness of person of Hampstead children
was better than the whole of London, the percentage of children whose
condition as to nutrition was described as "good" has been below
that of London for several years until 1932. Those whose condition
was described as "average" which had been in past years a little
better than the County was, in 1932, the same.
The following are but two of many instances of families receiving
assistance by way of milk under the Maternity and Child Welfare
Act, in which an unduly high percentage of the family income is taken
for rent.
1. Man, wife and five children. Family income averaging
£3 per week, occupy 3 rooms at a rent of 25s. per week.
2. Man, wife and two children. Family income averaging 30s.
per week, occupy 2 rooms at a rent of 17s. 6d. per week.
The difficulties of families where there are many children are of
course accentuated.
In no part of Hampstead, so far as I am aware, have we dropped
below the "one-roomed home" housing standard. At the censal
years of 1911, 1921 and 1931, the number of private families comprising
3 or more persons occupying one-roomed homes, together with
the number of persons in the family, will be seen from the following
table:—