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10
BIRTHS.
The allocation of the inward transfers to the Wards of the Borough is given below. In
certain instances the proportions of illegitimate births are surprisingly high.
Births: Inward Transfers, 1912.
Queen's Park. Harrow Road. Maida Vale. Westbourne. Church. Lancaster Gate, West. East. Hyde Park.
27(8) 58(8) 44(8) 38(6) 66(17) 11(2) — 23(7)
The figures in parenthesis indicate the numbers of births of illegitimate children included in the totals.
The corrected total number of births, based on the local registration and the outward and
inward transfers furnished by the Registrar-General, was 3,015 (1,548 males and 1,467 females),
equal to a birth-rate of 21.18 per 1,000 persons. After much consideration, however, it has
been decided to adopt the correction for outward transfers deduced from the local Registrars'
returns and to include only 267 of the inward transfers received from the Registrar-General, thus
arriving at a corrected total of 2,991 births (1,533 of males and 1,458 of females), equal to a birthrate
of 21.01 per 1,000. The arithmetic of the two corrections is given below.
According to The Registrar-General. The Department.
Males. Females. Males. Females.
Births registered locally 1,422 1,352 1,422 1,352
Outward transfers 12 19 26 24
1,410 1,333 1,396 1,328
Inward transfers 138 134 137 130
1,548 1,467 1,533 1,458
3,015 2,991
The corrected number of multiple births last year was 48, all of twins, comprising 12 of
males, 16 of females, and 20 of mixed sexes, so that 96 children (3.2 per cent. of the total
number) were born in multiple births, 44 (2.8 per cent.) being boys, and 52 (3.5 per cent.) girls.
The proportion of female to male births (corrected numbers) was somewhat less last year
than in either of the preceding two years, the figures being:—
No. of Births of Femai.es to 1,000 Births of Males.
1912, 951. 1911, 995. 1910, 978.
For the first time it has been possible to make a complete tabulation of inward transfers
according to the residences of the parents, and in consequence the numbers of births allocated
to the Wards during 1912 are not strictly comparable with those given for earlier years (see
Table II., Appendix A), when the distribution of such transfers was incomplete. The numbers
of births entered to each Ward during the six years 1907-12 will be found in the table just
mentioned. Last year's birth-rates are given in Table 5 (page 12). The rates in the following
Wards—Queen's Park, Maida Vale, Westbourne, Lancaster Gate, West, and Hyde Park, were
higher last year than in 1911, and last year's rates exceeded the mean rates in Maida Vale,
Westbourne, and Lancaster Gate, East, Wards.
Illegitimacy.—The 2,774 births registered locally included 159 of illegitimate children, equal
to 5.7 per cent. of the total, as compared with 6.0 per cent. in 1911. The proportions of
illegitimate to total births registered in the three Registration Sub-districts were—North,
2.0 per cent. (3.1, 1911), Central, 10.8 (10.3, 1911), and South, 2.8 (2.5,1911). The excess noted
in the Central Sub-district is due to the fact that that Sub-district includes the Workhouse, where
64 illegitimate births occurred (70.3 per cent. of all births in the Institution, as compared with
(66.3 in 1911). The local Registrars' returns showed that 29 of the 159 children were born to
non-resident mothers, or 7 more than the number of outward transfers furnished by the
Registrar-General. The inward transfers numbered 56. The corrected total has been put at 186