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ANNUAL REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Borough of Bexley.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Annual Report for
the year 1951.
The vital statistics of the Borough are, broadly,
satisfactory and present a number of interesting features.
The birth rate during 1951 was 12.79 per thousand of the
home population compared with 13.13 per thousand in
1950, 14.02 in 1949, 15.36 in 1948, 18.72 in 1947, 19.75
in 1946, 18.81 in 1945 and 21.06 in 1944. Between 1931
and 1944 the lowest birth rate recorded was 15.88 (1941)
and so it will be seen that the increase in the birth rate
towards the end of the war has not been maintained and
the birth rate in fact shows an accelerated rate of decline
which, in general, follows the trend in the birth rate for
the country as a whole, although the birth rate for
Bexley is appreciably lower than the national rate
(15.5). There is a number of possible explanations.
Firstly, the housing position is a major deterrent to
young married people to start a family. Added to this
there is the high cost of living, including the high cost
of setting up a home.
The birth rate for the Borough corrected by the use
of the Registrar General's comparability factor (0.94)
was 12.02. Between the two wars the birth rate of Bexley
was higher than that for the country as a whole, the
reason no doubt being that the rapid development of the
town attracted a young type of resident. The Borough
has now practically reached saturation point in regard to
the building of houses and it would appear that young
people are tending to seek accommodation in other
districts or deferring the date of starting a family.
Bearing in mind the low death rate which we enjoy,
nowadays, and the fact that the level of the population
is being maintained only by the fertility of the past, two
things are obvious; firstly that the number of old people
must increase and secondly (seeing that we are all mortal)
the death rate must be expected to rise and the population
stablised at a lower level based on present day fertility
factors.
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