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7
POPULATION.
series of tables a supplementary statement showing the numbers of tenements of five or more
rooms containing averages of more than two persons per room, which statement shows the
numbers of children under ten years of age enumerated in such tenements.
Before proceeding to refer to the tables which have been prepared to show the housing
conditions in the Borough, it may be stated that at the census of 1901 a proportion of occupiers
who, from the details contained in their schedules, evidently occupied tenements the number of
rooms of which ought to have been entered in the schedules, omitted to do so. Such tenements
were distributed by the Census Commissioners, and, to the extent of the omissions, the data of
1901 were estimates. At the last census that source of error was reduced to a minimum, as
every occupier was required to enter the number of rooms of his tenement, so that the only
errors which were likely to occur would be due to misstatements wilfully made or arising from
erroneously counting rooms (such as sculleries, offices, &c.) which the instructions directed not
to be included in the total.
In Vol. VIII. of the Report which deals with "Tenements" a new term, viz., "Private
Families," has been introduced, and the tabulation described above has been confined to the
tenements occupied by the families coming within the meaning given to that term by the
Census Commissioners. The following passage from the text of that part of the Census Report
contained in Vol. VIII. will explain the use of the new term.
A "dwelling" or "tenement" was defined in the instructions issued to the enumerators as
"a place in which any person entitled to receive a schedule usually lives," and the persons
entitled to receive schedules, and therefore for census purposes regarded as heads of families, were
stated to be:—
(a) Every head of a family occupying the whole or part of a house or flat.
(b) Every separate lodger occupying a room or rooms in a house or flat. (Where two or
more lodgers shared a room or rooms, they were treated for census purposes as a
single family.)
(c) Every resident caretaker of a house to be let, of a shop or other business premises,
or of a public building.
(d) Every out.door servant (with or without family) occupying separately any building or
rooms in a building, such as a lodge, gardener.s cottage, dwelling rooms over a
stable or coachhouse, &c., which is detached from the house to which it belongs
or has no internal communication therewith.
(e) Every resident proprietor, manager or head of an hotel, club, business establishment,
school, etc.
(/) The chief resident officer of every institution.
(g) The master or person in charge of every barge, boat, or other vessel.
The families under headings (a) to (d) have been treated as "private families," those under
heading (e) as "private" only when the domestic members of the occupier.s family
exceed the non.domestic (i.e., trade servants, visitors, scholars, etc.), and those under
heading (f) and (g) have been treated as " non.private families."
The headings given in the above quotation correspond generally with the divisions of Table 4,
but it is impossible to fit the figures now to be given with any summation of parts of
that table.
If the number of separate schedules issued be taken as representing the number of "families"
or separate establishments in the Borough, the selected "private families" (33,048) formed 9741
per cent. of the total families enumerated. (See Table 5.) That table also shows that the proportions
of "private families" to all families varied from 96.54 per cent. (Westminster) to 99.68
(Willesden) in the districts circumjacent to the Borough, that for the Metropolis as whole being
99.04. The individuals included in "private families" formed 90.52 per cent. of the total
population of the Borough, as compared with a maximum proportion of 98.63 per cent. in
Willesden and a minimum of 80.38 per cent. in Westminster.