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7
Population.
The Registrar General gives 49,730 as the estimated resident
civilian population for mid-year 1944, which gives us the basis
for calculating vital and disease rates in this Report. One must
take into consideration the dispersal of population for national
service and evacuation when comparing this much depleted
figure with previous years.
I would suggest that the population under normal conditions
would be approximately 62,000. Taking the average number of
persons per house, as ascertained in our housing survey of ten
years ago, in conjunction with the number of assessment of
habitable houses, or the excess of births over deaths since the
outbreak of war, each method is productive of an approximate
Population figure of 62,000.
Births.
The Birth Rate for 1944 is 16.5 per 1,000 per population,
compared with 17.5 for 1943.
The Registrar General's figure for 1944 is 820 live births and
20 stillbirths, after adjustment by transferable registrations.
Many confinements took place during 1944 in safer areas,
either under the Government Evacuation Scheme for expectant
mothers or through private arrangements made by mothers
themselves. This dispersal occasioned some difficulty in arriving
at a figure for the year. At the end of January, 1945, we were
able to calculate for official annual return after adjustment by
inward and outward transferable notifications a total of 843
notified births, of which 826 were live and 17 stillbirths, but it
is doubtful if the interchange of information between
ties warding transferable births pursued a consistent routine,
as it may remarked that subsequently further inward transferble
births which filtered through to us through various
nannels of information, increased the total to 879 (861 live and
18 still births).