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62 Annual Report of the London County Council, 1913.
Some further information which cannot be put into tabular form is contained in some of the
reports as to the working of the Housing Acts, and as to their uses and difficulties.

Under Section 17 (7) of the Housing and Town Planning Act, 1909, a room habitually used as a
sleeping place, the surface of the floor of which is more than three feet below the surface of the part of
the street adjoining or nearest to the room, is deemed to be unfit for human habitation, if it is not on
an average at least seven feet in height from floor to ceiling, or does not comply-with regulations which
the local authority with the consent of the Local Government Board may prescribe. So far as is
shown in the annual reports of medical officers of health, regulations made by eleven authorities have
been approved by the Local Government Board, these authorities being the metropolitan borough
councils of Battersea, Fulham, Hampstead, Kensington, Lambeth, Poplar, St. Marylebone, St. Pancras,
Stoke Newington, Wandsworth and Woolwich. In Holborn and Paddington new by-laws were still
under consideration at the end of the year.
Overcrowding.
In the 1911 census the total number of families living in overcrowded tenements, that is,
in tenements comprising rooms occupied by more than two persons each was found to be 121,638,
including 758,786 persons of whom 289,802 were children under ten years of age. On this basis
of overcrowding figures are given, which enable comparison to be made of the conditions
existing at the time of the censuses of 1901 and 1911. From the following table it will be seen
that generally there has been a decrease during the last decennium in the percentage of the
total population living in overcrowded tenements of one and two rooms, with a corresponding increase
in the percentage living in overcrowded tenements of three and four rooms. The nett increase in the
percentage of the total population living in overcrowded tenements of one to four rooms is 0.04.
Expressed as a percentage of total tenements, the table also shows an increased use of tenements
of one to four rooms in the census years 1901 as compared with 1891, and 1911 as compared with
1901, of 10.5 per cent., and 4.2 per cent. respectively. It may not be out of place here to mention that
tenements of less than four rooms contain 43.3 per cent. of the private family population of London,
including 6.24 per cent. in single-roomed tenements, 15.84 per cent. in tenements of 2 rooms, and 21.2
per cent. in tenements of 3 rooms. As an interesting fact, it may also be noted that of the 1,023,951
private families enumerated in London, 95,724 or 9.3 per cent. consist of single persons in the proportion
of 58,594 females to 37,130 males. .....