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13
Houses.
In London the Report states there were at the date of the census
1,019,546 families or separate occupiers, giving an average of rather
more than 4.4 persons to a family. The number of inhabited houses*
was 571,768, against 547,146 in 1891, an increase of 4.5 per cent.; of
uninhabited houses 40,069, against 39,686 in 1891, an increase of
1.0 per cent.; and of houses building 4,624, against 4,194 for 1891,
an increase of 10-3 per cent. Of the uninhabited houses 24,098 are
'•'in occupation"—that is, utilised for business or other purposes, but
without inmates on census night.
The total number of separate tenements, which had been 937,606
in 1891, rose to 1.019,546, the increase being equal to 8.7 per cent.
Of this total the tenements containing five or more rooms increased
from 307,037 to 347,516, equal to 13.2 per cent.; while the increase
of those with less than five rooms was from 630,569 to 672,030, and
did not exceed 6.6 per cent. The rate of increase in the larger
tenements was therefore exactly double that shown in the smaller
tenements. Stated in another way, the tenements with five or more
rooms were equal to 32.7 per cent. of the total tenements in 1891,
and to 341 per cent. at the recent census; while the percentage of
the tenements with less than five rooms declined from 67.3 to 65.9.
The reduction in the number of the latter class of tenements was
most strongly marked in the tenements of one room, which declined
from 172,502 in 1891 to 149,524—that is, from 18.4 per cent. of the
total tenements to 14.7 per cent. It may further be pointed out
that the number of single-room tenements in which more than two
persons were enumerated declined from 56,622 to 40,762; while the
number of one-roomed tenements with six or more inmates on the
census night declined from 4,097 to 1,802. The tenements of two
rooms showed a slight, and those of three or four rooms a marked,
increase upon the numbers returned in 1891.
* The Registrar-General deems it necessary to draw prominent attention to the
opinion he has been compelled to adopt, that the returns as to "Houses" are in
many cases unsatisfactory, and to some extent misleading. The returns received
have been carefully revised, and the result has been to disclose differences in certain
districts, as compared with the returns for 1891, that are quile inccmpatible with
any possible change in the amount of residential accommodation. For cens's purposes
a block of model dwellings or residential mansions is counted as a single house, whatever
may be the number of separate tonements; at the census of 1891, in some cases the
local Registrars failed to observe this rule, and returned each tenement as a house;
consequently the numbers of inhabited houses enumerated in 1891 and 1901 have, in
many cases, little value for comparative purposes. The parishes of St. George Hanover
Square, Bethnal Green, St. Botolph without Aldgate (Whtechapel), and Horsleydown
may be cited as cxtreme instances in point.