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

Paddington 1906

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington, Metropolitan Borough of]

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housing
61
At the commencement of April of last year, the month in which the By-law requires the
cleansing to be carried out, there were 1,212 houses on the Registers. Each of these was
inspected and the conditions qua uncleanliness and sanitary defects, &c., noted, a complete
record being also made of the occupants of each tenement and house. The inspections
required for this work and for the subsequent supervision, numbered 4,649 last year, as compared
with 4,002 in 1905. The notices issued numbered 2,025 (as compared with 1,624 in the
previous year), and 11 summonses were necessary. The housing arrangements are given
in Table 36.

Table: TABLE 36.Particulars as to Numbers of Tenements and Inhabitants in Registered Houses 1906.

TABLE 36.

Particulars as to Numbers of Tenements and Inhabitants in Registered Houses 1906.

Rooms to Tenement.1234567891011
TP10TP10TP10TP10TP10TP10TP10TP10TP10TP10TP10
10P10P10P10P10P10P10P10P10P10P10P
1626626...719140929.357758313133283249611261797142861626....................................
3838...30260044151052193418118049236410587622647758991053593704415319914517541525.........
322...2244...601542697302868429912173298140532241473014199136453419212184
4...............6171113598382105196271531685331221462139
5.............................................151143....................................

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5—number of Tenements containing (P/10) Persons over 10 years of age, and (10/P) Persons under 10 years of age

Table: The Fable may be summarised briefly as follows:—

The Fable may be summarised briefly as follows:—

Totals."Overcrowded.'' 1Average number of persons per room.†
One-room tenements ...1,9095642.1
Two-room „1,9687952.2
Three-room „4401021.7
Four-room „5391.5
Five-room „2not known1.3

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*Registrar-General's standard, inhabitants averaging more than
two persons per room, irrespective of ages of occupants.
†Irrespective of ages.
Overcrowding.—There are two standards of overcrowding, viz., that adopted by the
Registrar-General in his Census Reports, and that prescribed by the By-laws. By the former,
which can be used only for tenements of less than five rooms, any tenement whose occupants
(disregarding their ages) average more than two per room, is deemed to be overcrowded;
while the latter is based on the cubic space of the rooms and the ages of the occupants.
Where a room is used both for living and sleeping, each occupant must have 400 cu.ft. if over
ten years of age, and 200 if under. If the room be used for sleeping only, the allowances are
reduced to 300 and 150 cu. ft. respectively. It is with the latter form of overcrowding that
the Department deals by legal process, but the former is useful as an index of the general
standard of housing. Since 1902 particulars of the "housing" in houses registered during
each year have been compiled in the form* used by the Registrar-General, while similar data
*The form used by the Department shows the inhabitants in two age-groups, viz., over and under 10 years of
age, that of the Registrar-General gives the number of persons (all ages) only.