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7
METROPOLITAN BOROUGH OF SHOREDITCH
To the MAYOR, ALDERMEN and COUNCILLORS
Sir, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit the annual report on the progress of the health services of your
authority during 1937. Dr. Underwood, under whose supervision most of the
work detailed in this report was carried out, was appointed medical officer of health
to the County Borough of West Ham in 1937 and left Shoreditch on 18th October.
I did not take up my appointment here until the middle of December and therefore
so far as this report is concerned I have done little more than arrange and edit it.
The vital statistics show that in the middle of 1937 the population of the district,
as estimated by the Registrar-General, was 82,240. This is a decrease of 3,160 on
the previous year and shows a continuation of the decrease in the population which
has been going on in London generally, and in the crowded parts of the East End
particularly, for a number of years. So far as Shoreditch is concerned the maximum
recorded population was in the first year for which public health statistics have
been kept, namely, 1893, when it was 122,420. Since then the decline has been
gradual with a few exceptional years in which an increase was estimated.
It is impossible to know with any degree of accuracy what the future will be
so far as the population is concerned as the tendency to a declining population will
to some extent be checked by the building (which started some years ago but has
now increased in speed) of large blocks of flats. It is a fact also that the tendency
of working people to move into outlying suburbs is probably being checked. This
is to some extent because of transport difficulties, the present state of congestion for
transport in London wasting a considerable amount of time in travelling and this
waste of time being sufficient to offset a large number of the advantages which
working people find in being away from the centre of a densely populated area.
In 1937 the birth rate was 14.86 per thousand population (against 14.92 in
1936). Thus the rate remains practically unchanged and in fact it has been between
14 and 15 in each of the last three years. Before that time however there had
been a gradual decline almost throughout the period during which statistics have
been kept.