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Public Health Department,
Poplar Town Hall,
Bow Road, E. 3.
Telephone No. ADVance 4414
TO THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS OP THE
METROPOLITAN BOROUGH OF POPLAR,
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit my Annual Report on the health and sanitary
circumstances of the Borough during the year 1961
The population in Poplar reached a peak of 169,000 in 1926, over the
years it dropped slowly to 131,200 in 1939. The war had a very marked effect.
Owing to the evacuation of persons and the demolition of nearly one third of
the houses during the war, it fell to 51,260 in 1942. Since then there was an
increase to 74,940 in 1948. Then intense activity in connection with slum
clearance and re-development, which entailed the clearance of large areas, the
planning of new open spaces, and the re-zoning of areas previously used for
residential purposes for industrial use, caused the population again to drop to
63,340 in 1960.
The character of the area has been changed and improved; as a result of
the re-development a more stable population has developed and this is recorded
in an increase of 2,510 on the figures for last year, the population now
standing at 65,850. Whilst this is undoubtedly due in some part to re-development,
probably one half of the increase is related to overseas immigrants, notably
from Pakistan and the West Indies, most of whom are distributed in small
numbers fairly evenly throughout the area.
The total of infectious diseases recorded in the borough for the year
was 1,607 of which number 1,333 were measles. Of the remaining 274, 67 cases
were cases of pneumonia, which represents a 50% increase on the figure for
1960, and 60 cases of scarlet fever, representing a 100% increase on 1960,
Whooping cough, which soared in 1960, has once more dropped to normal.
During the year there was an interesting outbreak of typhoid fever of
seven cases which was familiar in distribution and origin, it being discovered
that a grandmother aged 70 had suffered from typhoid at the age of 14 and
although she had had several children and there were a number of grandchildren
with whom she mixed frequently and intimately, there was no previous history
of her having infected anyone else until this present outbreak when the
connection was proved bacteriologically. She is still a carrier.
There have been no outbreaks of dysentery or food poisoning.
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