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M.B.E. Mr. Alan R. Taylor, a member of the Friends Ambulance Unit attached to
Lewisham Hospital, was awarded the B.E.M. Miss B. J. Smith, ward sister, and
Miss W. A. R. Butler, staff nurse, Brook Hospital, received commendations.
The Czechoslovak government appointed to the Order of the White Lion, Sir
Thomas Carey Evans, medical superintendent, Hammersmith Hospital, and awarded
a military medal, of the first class, to Dr. J. W. Healy, the deputy medical superintendent,
and of the second class to Miss F. A. Campbell, formerly matron, Hammersmith
Hospital (now a principal matron at head office); Miss G. M. Godden, matron ;
Mr. W. Milton, steward; Miss I. Thomson, departmental sister; Miss J. Kennard,
ward sister; Miss D. Fryatt, staff nurse; and Mr. D. T. Currie, pharmacist.
VITAL STATISTICS
The Registrar-General estimates the civilian population of the county in the
middle of 1945 to have been 2,601,370, compared with 2,462,500 a year earlier. The
corresponding estimates for metropolitan boroughs are shown in table 1 on page 12,
and the rates given in this annual report are calculated upon these figures.
Population

Marriages,
births and
deaths
* Persons married.
The birth and marriage rates quoted are related to the civilian population,
in the absence of a figure for the total population. While these rates may be compared
with those for other war years, it is not possible to assign any absolute significance
to them. In England and Wales as a whole, the average birth-rate during
1945 at 16.1 five births per 1,000 living was lower than in 1944, when at 17.5, it
corresponded to a reproduction rate of .996, i.e., the level of fertility which, if
maintained, would ensure that the female infants would almost fully (99.6 per cent.)
replace themselves during their future reproductive lifetime; but, at the end of
1945, the birth-rate again showed an upward movement toward the 1944 level. As
far as can be judged, the true London birth-rate appears to have followed a similar
trend.
The marriage rate during 1945 for the country as a whole reached a high level of
18.6, after having fallen to a minimum of 14.1 in 1943. In notes to the return for
the quarter ended 31st December, 1944, the Registrar-General emphasised that the
maintenance of the high birth-rate then operating depended upon the continuance,
inter alia, of a marriage rate at about 12 per cent. higher at each age than those at
which women were marrying prior to the war, adding "such rates are higher than
any hitherto recorded in this country in times of peace, and though, with the prospect
of greater social and economic security in contemplation they cannot be regarded
as outside the scope of practical attainment, it would be impossible at the present
time to place any reliance upon their expectation." Experience during and after
The war of 1914-18 showed that substantial changes in marriage and fertility rates
can occur in a comparatively short time, and it is clearly impossible at the present
time to regard the position as stable.