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3
PART I.
Population.
At the census taken in the spring of 1901 there were found to
be 183,001 persons living in the City. I have already shown in my
monthly reports that this represents a decrease of 18,958 (equal to
9.4 per cent.), as compared with the population as ascertained in
1891.
The Registrar-General has now issued statistical tables for the
County of London, and from these I have extracted the particulars
relating to the City of Westminster. The population and number of
inhabited houses in the old Civil Parishes and in the new Wards are
given in Table I.
The population and areas of the Wards, as now constituted, have
been added by me for 1891.
It has been somewhat difficult to ascertain the populations of
certain Wards, as at previous census periods, but, so far as that is
possible from the available records, that has been done, and I have
made out a comparative statement, showing the alterations which
have taken place in the population and number of houses in each
Ward of the City.
St. George's Group.—Dealing first with the Conduit, Grosvenor,
Knightsbridge St. George, and Victoria Wards, which may be called
the St. George's Group, I find that the population fluctuates up and
down in such a way as to introduce a considerable element of doubt
with regard to the accuracy of the figures. My predecessor,
Professor Corfield, in his Annual Reports for 1892 and 1897, pointed
out that a large number of the inhabitants are out of town on
Sundays, and especially when the Sunday elected for taking the
census is just immediately before or after Easter; thus in 1861 the
Registrar-General noted that in the Parish of St. George, Hanover
Square, "587 persons were temporarily in the district, and 3,206
were out of town at country houses, visiting, &c.," but since then
this information is not given.
The population of the group recorded at each census since 1801
to 1901 gradually increased from 38,440 to 90,028 in 1871, since
which date there has been a steady decrease to 76,957, the number
(8545) a 2