Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]
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66
and in Brompton, 12,161. Subsequently, revised figures were
issued in the weekly returns of the Registrar-General, from which
it would appear that the population of the parish on the 4th April,
1881, was 168,151, viz., in the Town sub-district, 120,141, and
in Brompton sub-district, 43,010: for the revised numbers of the
sexes, and for details as to ages, etc., we must await the publication
of the final report next year. The number of "inhabited
houses," as returned by the Registrar-General, was 20,103, an
increase of 4,368 in the decade, the number in 1871 having been
15,735. The rate-books, however, which in April, 1871, gave
a total of 15,181 rated properties, or 531 fewer than the
Registrar-General's return of "inhabited houses," in 1881 gave
a total of 20,679, or 554 more than the Registrar-General's return,
the total difference between the two returns, comparing 1881 with
1871, being no fewer than 1,130. As I stated in my last
annual report, I am unable to account satisfactorily for the whole
of this difference. It would appear, however, that in the
Census returns a building like the Model lodging-houses in the
Mall, Notting Hill, is regarded as a single "inhabited house,"
whereas this building is rated as 48 houses, there being 48 separate
holdings. In like manner the seven blocks of buildings known as
"Campden Houses," in Peel Street, Campden Hill, enumerated as
7 inhabited houses, are rated as 133 houses. Again, there are
some large houses and buildings let out in "flats" in both
sub-districts; each flat is the subject of a separate entry in the ratebooks;
but the Flats in any given building, whatever their number,
are reckoned as one "house" in the Census returns. Occupied
premises, as workshops, stables, etc., furnish the ground of many
entries in the rate-books, but not being used for sleeping purposes,
are not reckoned by the Registrar-General as" inhabited houses."
On the other hand, "unoccupied" houses in the charge of caretakers,
which figure in the rate-book returns as "empty," are
properly enumerated as "inhabited houses," for census purposes.
It is not alleged that these variations between the Census
enumeration and the rate-book method of reckoning, will
account for the whole of the discrepancy between the RegistrarGeneral's
number of inhabited houses and the rate-book total
of occupied premises, but it is probable that the balance may be
accounted for by the alteration in the mode of rating properties