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This year the Registrar-General has given his estimate of the
mid-year population of Romford as 54,600, which compares with
51,830 last year, an increase of 2,770. The main development of
the Town has undoubtedly been in the Collier Row Area, and this
development would have every appearance of continuing for several
years yet. Building is also active, however, in other parts, and
there is at present no sign of our reaching a saturation point in
population.
Last year, I set out in detail the various factors that influence
the trend of a population. In addition to these there is the question
of the increased chance that individuals nowadays have of surviving
to a later age. In this respect, as the Chief Medical Officer of
the Ministry of Health states, it has been estimated throughout the
Country as a whole that about three-quarters of the inhabitants
will live from school age to about 60 years of age, an improvement
of nearly 38% for Males, and 43% for Females, compared to conditions
prevailing about a century ago. Regarding the chance a
person aged 60 years of age has of surviving another 25 years, it
has been estimated that the improvement for Women is almost as
great as in respect of survivorship from school age to 60, but for
Men it is much less, only 8%, instead of 38%. For Men the chance
of surviving from boyhood to 60 is much greater than it was for
their great-grandfathers, but a Man now aged 60 has not a much
greater chance of living to be 85 than his great-grandfather enjoyed.
Although it is not possible to calculate the details for Romford
itself, I have no reason to believe that the circumstances here are
in any way different from those of the Country in general.
In previous reports I have pointed out the difficulty we have
in a district such as this in compiling accurate statistics, and how
this difficulty is increased the further we get from the accuracy of a
Census year. This is particularly the case when we try to compile
the information for Table 4 above. In this Table we give the Death
Rate and Infant Mortality Rate for the individual wards, but the
true resident population of these wards is an unknown factor, and
can only be worked out approximately. Then again, the Age and