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12
It includes 348 houses, consisting of 1,373 rooms used for dwelling purposes,
containing 545 families with a population of 2,424—1,517 adults and
907 children of school age.
The houses, generally speaking, are about one hundred years old. The
area had only a very few houses on it in .1819, most of the ground being
covered with ropeworks. In 1826 all the houses were built, with the exception
of the houses in Manning Street, which were not built until 1843.
Limehouse Fields has always had a high death-rate, including a very
high infantile mortality. As far back as 1898 I made a special report to the
late Limehouse District Board of Works, based on personal enquiries into all
the deaths of infants under one year of age, where the infantile mortality in
the districts known as Limehouse Fields was 220 per 1,000 births. As a result
of this report it was decided to appoint a Flealth Visitor for this part of Limehouse,
and the Sanitary Inspector was instructed to do everything in his power
to bring the houses into a better sanitary condition, more especially to remedv
the dampness, to insist on ventilation underneath the lower floors, etc.
The infantile mortality has decreased, together with that throughout the
whole Borough, but it is still much higher than in the whole Borough.
Area. Whole Borough.
1921 186 per 1,000 births 89 per 1,000 births.
1922 84 „ 79 „
1923 78 „ 62 „
1924 161„ 74 „
The death-rate from Zymotic Diseases (Measles, Scarlet Fever, Whooping
Cough, Diphtheria, Enteric Fever and Diarrhœa) was three times greater in
the area than in the whole Borough in 1921, nearly twice as much in 1922 and
nearly eight times as much in 1924.
Infectious diseases of a notifiable character were at the rate of 15.2 per
.1,000 of the population in the area in 1923 and 19 per 1,000 in 1924, whereas
in the whole Borough the figures were 4'7 and 4'6, respectively.
Deaths from Tuberculosis and from Respiratory Disease have been far
more prevalent in the area than in the rest of the Borough.
The roofs of most of the houses are made of pan tiles. When they become
defective the roofs are very difficult to make weatherproof. The result is that
sooner or later the ceilings fall down. There is a history of this kind in onehalf
of the houses in the area during the last five years.
Some of the houses are legally overcrowded, others are indecently
occupied as well as being grossly overcrowded.