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principally sand and gravel, with here and there traces of clay. The mean
elevation of the sub-district, in feet, is 12 above Trinity high water mark;
and within the area above stated is comprised a portion of the River
Thames.
In this sub-district the density of the population was never very great,
but there is at the present day a growing desire on the part of capitalists
to extend the inhabited area of the parish by building on every available
space It appears that the population of the parish increased very slowly
during the 17th and 18th centuries; and, what is somewhat remarkable,
that the burials from 1620 (the period at which the parish register commences)
to 1789, exceeded the baptisms in almost every decennial period
of which any correct records have been preserved.

It should be observed that there is a considerable break in the parish
register, both as to the entries of baptisms and burials, between the years
1686 and 1700; so that it was impossible to make any accurate calculation
upon the comparative state of the population at any other periods,
prior to the commencement of the present century, than those referred to
in the above table. As the locality was always looked upon to hold a high
place among the neighbouring townships, in point of health and freedom
from morbific influences, and as the plague raged here principally in
1665-6 (a year excluded from the above table), this general excess of
burials over baptisms is the more extraordinary, and cannot be very satisfactorily
accounted for.
The population of Putney, as ascertained in 1791, was 2,294; but at
the last census (1851) it amounted to 5,280. For an interval of 60 years
a much larger increase than this might have been reasonably looked for.
During the last 10 years a very visible increase, both in the population
and in the number of houses, has taken place; and the growing importance
of the town, and the consequent necessity for improved sanitary
regulations is now very generally admitted. At the close of the last century
there were about 450 houses in Putney; but at the present time the
number of dwellings is computed at above 1,000. At the last census,
in 1851, the inhabited houses were ascertained to be 918; so that,
with a population at that period of 5,280, the number of persons to each
house must have been 5.75 or 5¾. In the neighbouring parish of Wandsworth
it was 6.3 to each house at the same period. There appears to be
a considerable preponderance of the better class of dwellings, the average
annual value of houses in the parish being at the present time about £36.
In several streets in the by-ways of this town, as well as in most of the
courts, alleys, and cul de sacs leading out of the principal thoroughfare,
the houses are for the most part small, closely packed, ill-ventilated, and
over-tenanted, and, up to a very recent period, were most inefficiently
drained, and in too many instances not drained at all. The result of this
condition of the dwelling places of the poor may be readily conceived; a